C&G2 C&G3

With the participation of more than 1,400 people during the months of December 2009, Allegro 234 conducted the "Coolest & Gaps Branding Survey".

This survey is the first in which the question about the coolest brand has been opened without a predetermined list [spontaneous, not induced].

Through various media and online blogs, the survey has achieved a high participation level

1,444 participants [valid answers]; 10% more than in 2008
Europe 45%, the Americas 45% and Asia 5% [47 countries]
85% of participants working in areas related to branding, marketing, communications and PR

Coolest

The five coolest brands are:

Apple [with more than double of mentions than the second one]
Coca-Cola
Nike
Starbucks
Virgin

A group of brands that follows the top five, includes Amazon, Google, Corona, Lonely Planet and Marriot

Brands like Vueling, Illy, Burton, REI and Patagonia continue being part of the coolest ones at continental and country levels

Even as these are the coolest brands, participants also recognize that there are things to improve:

Responsibility: Brands are perceived as not enough attentive to social responsibility and environmental issues
Services: People is failing [not living the values that the brand promises]
Price: Brand premium price

Finally, two important issues:

Communication is only part of the experience [Companies in the telecommunications sector and financial institutions have rarely been mentioned, less than 1%]
Coolest brand Experiences are those which are giving real value

Gaps

On average, it is recognized that all companies, regardless of the sector they belong to, need to work on their brand experience

Those working in areas related to branding are more pessimistic than the non-related people
People fail to decode the message [marketing speaks a language that only they understand]
The aspirational is difficult to achieve and produces frustration [is sensed a lack of authenticity and realism]

Finally, in regard to the internal branding experience, 57% (80% more than in 2008) of participants believed that it is inappropriate and/or partially adequate in their business

You can read/download the full document here

Comments

written on 18-Jan-2010
russell.volckmann [http://www.webjam.com/brandintegrity] says:
Hi Cris... thanks for compiling all this data every year!

Question: I've been to the Allegro 234 site, and to the link you provided, but still cannot find a way to "download" a PDF... could you please shed some light on how to download?
written on 18-Jan-2010
cristian.saracco says:
Hi Russ!

Thank you very much!... I think (actually, I'm not so sure) that you have to see the presentation directly from "issuu"...

Yes, you can (Obama also dixit)... Go to http://issuu.com/cristian.saracco/docs/100112 ... _gaps You can download the doc from there!
written on 18-Jan-2010
russell.volckmann [http://www.webjam.com/brandintegrity] says:
... got it, thanks!

(1) Go to
http://issuu.com/cristian.saracco/docs/100112 ... _gaps
(2) Click "Download" @ top of presentation
(3) Sign IN w/ user name & password (or sign up for an account)
(4) Save file to disk
written on 18-Jan-2010
cristian.saracco says:
Great!
written on 19-Jan-2010
anne wagner [http://www.novastoria.com] says:
Some surprising and not so surprising results. Thanks for publishing.
written on 19-Jan-2010
Lupa says:
EXCELLENT WORK!!! Congratulations!
written on 19-Jan-2010
russell.volckmann [http://www.webjam.com/brandintegrity] says:
A few thoughts:

(1) Wouldn't it be great if we can get survey respondents from more people who are not directly involved in marketing and branding? General audiences and consumers? I wonder how we might be able to attract more of these in the coming year, in order to remove some of the potential for bias.

(2) Interesting to note that "Price" category provided one of the smallest gaps overall. That implies that "the coolest brands" offer aspirational characteristics, where people want those brands despite the price.

(3) Living the Brand: "With the crisis, companies have paid less attention to internal branding aspects"... 2009, 57% agree... 2008, 70% agree... is this correct? If so, company internal brand experience improved year-over-year?
written on 19-Jan-2010
cristian.saracco says:
(1) In 2008 the relation was 45/55 (45 non-related!)... Probably, it's a question of improving the communication of the survey out of the "brand bias people"

(2) And also, that people recognize that their own pricing is right... Perhaps, when we talk about our prices, we are including some other aspects related with value

(3) My mistake.... 2009 = No & +/- 57%... and 2008 = No & +/- 30% (70% said that they were living the brand)... So, things are becoming worst
written on 19-Jan-2010
russell.volckmann says:
Thanks Cris...

(1) Page 6 states: 85% of participants work on [in] branding related areas; but yes, wonder if we can get the the word to other LinkedIn groups that are less connected with branding or marketing. The challenge is that the professionals on LinkedIn are almost all related to brand in some way. What channels could we use? Hmmm. Need to think about this.

(2) Yes. Good. Agreed.

(3) Double- and triple-negatives can be confusing sometimes OK I see from the charts now the meaning I think: (a) 68% said living the brand in 2008; (b) 43% said living the brand in 2009.

Thanks for the clarification!
written on 29-Jan-2010
maham [http://mahamiqbal.blogspot.com] says:
nice piece of information but i would like to know the definition of the term "cool". what major elements were taken into consideration so that the brand could be described cool?
written on 31-May-2010
Tihomir Ipotpaliev - web designer [http://ipotpal.mp] says:
Exelent work, team!
written on 08-Jul-2010
Matt [http://www.belote.co.uk] says:
Congrats dude, you've done a really great job !!!
written on 16-Jul-2010
cristian.saracco says:
Thanks guys!

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