Amazon continued to dominate the retail industry, according to the latest Brand Intimacy 2018 Report, the largest study of brands based on emotions, from brand intimacy agency MBLM. The industry ranked third overall in the study, following the media & entertainment and automotive industries.
“Amazon has cracked the Brand Intimacy code and continues to improve its rank in our annual study,” said Mario Natarelli, managing partner at MBLM, in a news release. “While retail is facing challenges, the industry is in the midst of a reinvention and brands should be leveraging our Brand Intimacy principles to build stronger bonds with their customers.”
In the retail category, Amazon was followed by Target and Whole Foods. The remaining brands in the Top 10 were: Walmart, Nordstrom, Home Depot, eBay, Ikea, H&M and Macy’s.
Additional significant retail industry findings in the report include:
- The industry had an average Brand Intimacy Quotient of 42.0, well above the overall industry average of 27.1
- Three of the Top 10 Most Intimate Brands in the study were retail brands: Amazon, Target and Whole Foods
- Fulfillment, the archetype related to performance, was most associated with the category, and Amazon was the top-performing retail brand for fulfillment
- Amazon also ranked #1 for both men and women
- Millennials chose Target as their top choice in the retail industry
- Those aged 35 to 64 preferred Amazon, as did people with annual incomes between $35,000 and $75,000, while Whole Foods ranked #1 for those with annual incomes higher than $75,000
- Target and Wal-Mart improved their intimacy scores, while H&M and Macy’s declined in this year’s rankings
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. For the third year, the study 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. This year’s report analyzes the responses of 6,000 consumers and 54,000 brand evaluations across 15 industries in the U.S.
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).
