Registering a glass-not-quite-half-full placement, the beverages industry ranked ninth out of 15 studied in marketing intimacy firm MBLM’s latest Brand Intimacy 2018 Report, the largest study of brands based on emotions.
The top three in the industry, which moved up one spot from the 2017 study, were Coca-Cola, Coors and Budweiser. The remaining brands in the Top 10 for the beverages industry were: Pepsi, Red Bull, 7UP, Tropicana, Miller, Snapple and Mountain Dew.
“Brands in the beverages industry, which is innately personal, are missing out on opportunities to better connect with their customers,” said Mario Natarelli, managing partner at MBLM. “Beverage brands are related to rituals, rites of passage and celebrations since they are often consumed over shared meals, major life events, at sports games or during recreational activities. The industry has a strong foundation to work from to create stronger, more resilient customer bonds.”
Other significant beverages findings in the report include:
- The beverage industry had an average Brand Intimacy Quotient of 24.7, which was below the industry average of 27.1
- Indulgence, which is related to moments of pampering and gratification, was the most prominent in the category, and Budweiser was the top-performing brand for indulgence
- Coca-Cola, the top brand in the category, also ranked #1 for both men and women, as well as for millennials
- Users aged 55–64 preferred Coors and Red Bull ranked #1 for having the highest percentage of customers in fusing, the most advanced stage of Brand Intimacy
- Coors and Budweiser had considerably improved their intimacy scores since last year, while Miller and Tropicana declined in this year’s rankings
View the beverages industry findings here.
See the full Brand Intimacy 2018 Report here.
This year’s report contains the most comprehensive rankings of brands based on emotion, analyzing the responses of 6,000 consumers and 54,000 brand evaluations across 15 industries in the U.S., Mexico and UAE. MBLM’s reports and interactive Brand Ranking Tool showcase the performance of almost 400 brands, revealing the characteristics and intensity of the consumer bonds.
Brand intimacy is defined as a new paradigm that leverages and strengthens the emotional bonds between a person and a brand. MBLM’s study again revealed that top intimate brands in the U.S. surpassed the top brands in the Fortune 500 and S&P indices in revenue and profit over the past 10 years.
During 2017, MBLM conducted an online quantitative survey among 6,000 consumers in the United States (3,000), Mexico (2,000), and the United Arab Emirates (1,000). Participants were respondents who were screened for age (i.e. 18 to 64 years of age) and annual household income ($35,000 or more) in the U.S. and socioeconomic levels in Mexico and the UAE (A, B, and C socioeconomic levels).
