Late final yr, I sat down at my desk, fountain pen in hand, surrounded by a mountain of notes I’d assiduously compiled by means of the yr, able to recap the yr in branding. Because the sticky notes chaos receded and unified themes emerged, I spotted that I wanted to name upon the knowledge of a village of name consultants to weigh in and validate my considering. I spent a month speaking to among the foremost consultants at companies like Prophet, Lippincott, Siegel+Gale, VMLY&R’s BAV Group, Barkley, Interbrand, and Kantar (BrandZ), inviting them to contribute their assessments and information on model efficiency in 2019. On the finish of it, we had Forrester’s first annual model overview: the highlights and lowlights of 2019 and promising begins for 2020.
Highlights
Three manufacturers made the spotlight reel: Disney, Mastercard, and Gucci. They’re all stalwarts with almost 250 years of historical past between them, but they beat out shiny new rising stars in our listing of prime manufacturers. These three manufacturers’ success shares some widespread themes: a fastidiously nurtured core model fairness made related to immediately’s audiences; a refusal to take a seat nonetheless; cognizance of 1’s shortcomings; and deployment of know-how in help of customer-obsessed expertise constructing.
Lowlights
Fb, Gillette, and Kraft Heinz won’t look again fondly on 2019. All three noticed their public notion — and, in lots of instances, their market place and monetary worth — decline precipitously. Gillette and Kraft Heinz have misplaced contact with their clients. And, in what’s one in all my favourite quotes within the report from Interbrand’s CEO, “Fb’s customers have realized that they are the product.” Out of contact, uncaring, inauthentic, deaf to the shopper — these are the traits that our lowlight manufacturers share.
2020, Right here We Come
This yr ought to see a number of attention-grabbing model tales unfold. On the opposite aspect of Kraft Heinz’s decline is the ascendancy of plant-based meals and the recognition of manufacturers like Not possible Meals and Past Meat. Direct-to-consumer (DTC) manufacturers similar to Casper, Glossier, Everlane, and Allbirds will proceed to endear themselves, though many will stop to be DTC within the truest sense (one in all my favorites, Billie, simply received picked up by P&G). And as you prepare for the following set of streaming gamers to return on-line, keep watch over Quibi. It’s made for Millennials, made for cellular, and has the potential to redefine leisure for future generations.
This put up was written by VP, Principal Analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee, and initially appeared right here.
