Talkwater, a consumer intelligence platform, has released their 2021 Brand love Story report, which analysed 1,200 global brands to find which were most loved during the pandemic.
By monitoring conversations on social media, news, and blogs, and by using their proprietary sentiment analysis and speech analytics capabilities, Talkwalker identified the key brand love indicators – the genuine emotional connections formed between consumers and a brand.
“This year, the report has been led by the pandemic trends,” said Robert Glaesener, Talkwalker CEO.
“Yet, despite disruption across all industries and with consumer buying habits fundamentally transformed, our top 50 brands found ways to not only weather these changes, but to turn them into opportunities. To build stronger audience connections, implement new distribution channels, innovate consumer outreach & nurturing, and ultimately, gain significant market share.”
With the most loved brands list dominated by beauty and fashion brands like Huda Beauty and M.A.C., and entertainment brands like Universal Music Group and Fortnite, the list has drastically changed year-on-year.
It also demonstrates that almost any brand has the potential to grow its brand love.
Particularly interesting is the rise in significance of APAC markets. According to the report, as Europe and America grappled with the pandemic, countries across APAC were either recovering or weathering the storm.
“To drive sales and boost engagements, brands looked at these markets,” the report explains.
“We saw an increase in brand mentions originating from these regions, with brands creating partnerships with regional stars. As the rest of the world opens up, the weight of marketing should shift into other areas.”
Other significant changes included the increase of traditional PR and of influencer marketing.
The number one most loved brand was Huda Beauty, a cosmetics range launched by beauty influencer and blogger Huda Kattan in 2013. The report reflects that “the brand is CSR active, donating $500,000 dollars to the NAACP in 2020. And by strengthening partnerships with other brands, they generated more PR mentions through various co-branded news stories.”
“Last year, the brand made our most-loved list in position 27. But by encapsulating the boost in social media makeup mentions, the brand has jumped straight into the number one spot.”
Next was French kitchen appliance manufacturer Moulinex. The report said that, “with influencers and users sharing cookery videos, we also saw an increase of visual brand mentions, with cookware brands like Moulinex
gaining a lead.”
In third was another cosmetics company, M.A.C. The report cites the brand’s choice to make Lisa, a performer in popular South Korean girl group Blackpink, a global brand ambassador. According to Talkwater, 9.2 per cent of M.A.C’s mentions and 9.15 per cent of engagements came from this association.
In eighth place was Australia’s own Kayo sports.
As put by the report, “Kayo Sports has been described as the ‘Netflix of sport’, offering a streaming subscription service focused only on sport, across Australia. At first, the pandemic hit the brand hard. With less live sport across the region, they suffered from a drop in paying subscribers, down to 272,000.”
“But as leagues reopened, the situation turned, with people wanting to experience the sports they love, but with minimal risk. By the end of 2020, they hit 624,000 paying subscribers, a company record. Part of Kayo Sports’ success is down to the emotional connection consumers have with sports. We’re not just talking about entertainment here, but life passions.”
“By covering a broad selection of sports, the brand offers more consumers an opportunity to enjoy what they love, and build loyalty to Kayo Sports at the same time.”
Looking specifically at the APAC market, the top three most loved brands were Milo, Blibli and Mango.
The report concludes that: “the last year has been a turbulent time for every brand, with a constant barrage of unexpected issues and changes. But in this report, we took the chance to highlight the brands that managed the crisis, weathered the storm, and came out with innovative and much loved marketing ideas.”
“Hopefully, we’re turning a corner and there’s a chance for normality to return, whatever that entails. Every brand has a chance to come out of this running, connecting with consumers like never before.”
“This is a chance to rethink, re-strategize, and rebuild all our brands into loved brands, and that opportunity starts now.”
