New research has revealed how being creative and challenging the status quo can help companies grow brand value at an “astonishing rate”.
The findings, unveiled at the Cannes Lions Festival today by Kantar Millward Brown, show how “every company” can learn from the way that brands like Disney, Apple and Netflix have utilised consumer perceptions to drive brand value to “new heights”.
The research breaks down the role that consumer perception of ‘creativity, disruption and great advertising’ plays in building brand value over time by analysing 3.6 million consumer interviews comparing perceptions of 122,000 brands in 51 markets over the last 12 years.
Brands that consumers perceive as creative but not disruptive have grown their brand value by an average of 69% over that period, while brands that consumers perceive as disruptive – defined as ‘shaking things up’ – but not creative have grown even more, boosting brand value by 123% over the same period.
Meanwhile, brands that consumers perceive to have both creativity and disruption at the heart of their businesses have performed even better, generating an average brand value growth of 154%.
Brands that combine all three – creativity, disruption and “great advertising” – performed the best, boosting average brand values by 265%.[advert position=”left”]
The report authors claim that data demonstrates that brands with disruptive creativity at the heart of their business can use it as an “engine to fuel advantageous consumer perceptions”.
The converse is that average declines of 14% were found for brands that scored in the bottom third for perceptions of both disruption and creativity.
“Having disruptive creativity at the heart of a business is about more than product and R&D, and being creative is not just about communications,” said Doreen Wang, global head of BrandZ at Kantar Millward Brown.
“The best way for brands to influence consumer perception is through effective communications, by experimenting with new formats and, most importantly, by delivering a great brand experience.”
The companies in the BrandZ Global Top 100 2018 that have successfully delivered ‘disruptive creativity’ to the consumer are Disney (137, where 100 is the average score for a brand) and Apple (135), with brands such as Netflix (130), Amazon (128) and JD.com (127), also scoring highly on disruptive creativity.
“Creative disruption is something that has to evolve and be applied every day across the entire company and needs to be experienced by the consumer across all touchpoints,” said Wang.
“The most innovative brands are constantly looking at how they can continue improving the life of the consumer. Shaking things up means never being satisfied with today.”
