Facebook and Apple Among Top Brands

The shift in brand loyalty has emerged, because consumers are gravitating toward companies that are socially conscious and transparent and that provide innovative services and products. 

The old standby companies that once generated the most loyalty were largely media companies, but consumers today favor technology and electronics companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Samsung. This paradigm shift, led among Millennial shoppers, has transitioned from the regard given to historical brands and government institutions that are preferred by Baby Boomers, according to a report conducted by PWC, the New York-based tax and advisory services company.

The data is strikingly similar among 6,700 global brands and 200,000 consumers in the four major industries examined - technology, entertainment, media and communications, retail and consumer goods and financial services. Companies emerge as brand leaders under a different set of factors now. Consumers seek companies whose brands evoke beliefs and feelings of being trustworthy, affordable, socially responsible, transparent, honest and dependable.

It may not be a surprise that the top brand leaders in 2014 include the following consumer companies: Bose, Clorox (CLX) , Coca-Cola (KO) , Discovery Channel (DISCA) , Disney (DIS) , DreamWorks (DWA) , Hallmark, Keurig (GMCR) , LG, National Geographic, Nike (NKE) , PepsiCo (PEP) , Rubbermaid (NWL) , Sony (SNE) and Under Armour (UA) , the PWC report said. Tech companies also made it on the list and include Apple (AAPL) , Amazon (AMZN) , eBay (EBAY) , Facebook (FB) , Google (GOOG) , HP (HP) , Microsoft (MSFT) , Netflix (NFLX) and PayPal (PYPL) .

Consumers are still drawn to companies that are brand leaders, especially when they are shopping for electronics and technology, with 76% who expressed this sentiment and also for cars and health services. Brand plays a large role for shoppers looking to buy entertainment or media products with 37% of Millennials who are more likely compared to those aged 55 or older who found this an important factor.

The sales figures mirrored this belief – over the past 15 years, these leading brands increased their value at “nearly five times the rate of the average S&P 500 company,” the report said.

Both Millennials and Baby Boomers like some of the same brands such as Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Samsung. Despite some of the similarity, the gap in the brands between Millennials and Baby Boomers is obvious. Baby Boomers tend to prefer brands like Bose, Discovery Channel, Dreamworks, Hallmark and National Geographic. Millennials are fans of Coca-Cola, Disney, Facebook, Netflix and PepsiCo.

Compared to the top 20 brands in 1999, only seven remain, including Disney, Discovery Channel and Microsoft.

“These are tried and true brands—and their secret may be just that: they’ve never stopped trying,” said the PWC report.

What Makes a Brand a Leader?...
Companies who follow a strategy of acting trustworthy and “showing your values and sticking to them” appear among the favorites of consumers. Since consumers now demand and expect more, they are looking for brands which are transparent - whether it’s how much their employees paid or the ingredients used.

Panera Bread (PNRA) , Chipotle (CMG) , Hershey (HSY) and Kraft are companies who have “have sworn off GMOs and other artificial ingredients,” prompting other companies to follow suit with the removal of artificial flavorings and colors from its food, PWC said.

“These are small, but important steps to mitigate eroding brand usage and reframe the brands as ones that are aligned with modern consumer values,” the report said.
What Brands Deliver

Whether they are technology or service companies, consumers lean toward items and options which are innovative such as Apple, which has made its products into “sleek, coveted accessories” or Airbnb, which give people a choice on where they can stay during vacations, the report found. Another popular emergence are companies who are producing experiences that people covet and their brands are now ubiquitous among conversations. Starbucks has remained at the forefront not because the company “excels at coffee, but because it excels at the coffee experience,” PWC said.

Creating new products or services that consumers thought were once impossible is now the new norm. Count Tesla (TSLA) , Uber and Facebook as “disruptive” companies who have shaped how people view the use of energy, transportation and sharing services.

“While many of the products and services created by technology companies today have become essential in our daily lives, tech companies dominate the brands because they do not rest on their laurels and constantly push boundaries,” said Pierre-Alain Sur, technology leader at PwC U.S.

Some of these companies have produced new ideas or solutions. The top four technology brands are Microsoft, Google, Apple and Amazon.

“Consumers are not good at telling us about their future needs,” the PWC report said. “Resilient brands understand this, and they address it by entertaining the inconceivable.”