The Most Relevant Brands According To Prophet Study

Some brands connect at a deeper with consumers than others. Prophet, a leading marketing strategy consultancy, decided to measure “brand relevancy” by exploring how brands connect to the head and heart of shoppers and play significant roles in their lives (see report: Relentlessly Relevant Brands 2023).

To determine the 2023 brands that are most relevant, the firm surveyed 11,500 U.S. consumers on more than 250 brands across 26 categories.

When asked the difference between “head” and “heart” relevance, Marisa Mulvihill, Global Head of Brand & Activation from Prophet indicated: “Last year we introduced Head and Heart – a framework for understanding how brands build relevance with consumers. We continue to see the most relevant brands leaning into head, heart, or a combination of both. Some brands are expert problem-solvers and become superhero “head” brands.​ These are the brands often showered with praise, with words like reliable, dependable, trustworthy, innovative, consistent and modern. In contrast, other brands that score best on heart measures are experts on how people feel–and know how to create products and experiences that draw from the vast spectrum of human emotion.

Head & Heart are each defined using 8 of 16 brand equity attributes tested in the BRI annual survey (total of all 16 used for these two pieces of the Head:Heart framework). For example, ‘makes me feel inspired’ is 1 of 8 heart attributes while ‘delivers a consistent experience’ is 1 of 8 Head attributes. In terms of how we calculate the brands’ scores on either Head and Heart, it’s a simple average across the 8 respective attributes using the top 2 box score on the brand equity question in the BRI survey. “

In their report, “Relentlessly Relevant Brands 2023,” Prophet identifies the top 10 brands as:

According to Mulvihill from Prophet, relevance has increased year over year across the study, indicating that the top brands were effective in driving relevance over the past year. In addition, there is a positive link to growth with the Top 50 2023 brands generating +201% revenue growth relative to the S&P 500 in the past 5 years.

Interestingly, only nine brands were able to maintain relevancy during the COVID-era ranking ( top decile of the research each year since 2020). These all-stars are: Android, Apple, Bose, Google, KitchenAid, Peleton, Spotify, Toyota, and USAA.

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