Category: New York, NY

New York, NY (September 08, 2015) – In an earlier article I discussed when it was time to rebrand a company. In this article, I’ll focus on when it might be time to refresh your brand strategy.

First thing is to remember a brand is much more than just a logo. It encompasses everything that contributes toward customer experience, including the culture you’re building and how you deliver your product or service. Your brand strategy is an essential business tool. If it is not helping you achieve your firm’s strategic goals, no matter how attached you are to your brand promise or your current campaigns, it may be time to take a fresh look at the strategy behind them.

Here are five signs that it’s time to re-evaluate your brand strategy:

1. Your brand scores are slipping. Akin to regularly servicing an automobile, you need to keep tabs on the health and quality of your brand. If you regularly research your brand’s relevance with key audiences and periodically fine tune your messaging, then you will get a lot more miles out of the brand than if you drive it off the showroom floor and never get it serviced. At a minimum, annual brand health surveys with external and internal audiences will keep you from suffering any major brand breakdowns. At best, you can solicit feedback in real-time from your customers, employees and key constituencies so you can respond quickly and efficiently to any contingency.

2. The business strategy changes. Brand strategy always follows business strategy. Perhaps the leadership team has decided that doubling revenues by acquisition is the goal for the next five years. Or maybe an IPO is in the plans for the not-so-distant future. Or the opportunity has arisen to enter a new international market. As a critical tool for rationalizing your portfolio and building market appeal, your brand needs to align with, support and reflect your business strategy. Your brand strategy is the story that holds your business together, and it must be told clearly and consistently to have maximum positive impact.

3. Competitive pressures have increased. Whether there are new entrants in your industry or a competitor has developed a groundbreaking technological advance, when the dynamics of your industry shift, you need to make sure you aren’t being left behind. “Clear, relevant, believable and distinct” is the mantra we use to keep us on track when developing a brand positioning. When market dynamics change, so can your ability to stand out from the crowd and be unique. If a “me too” provider pops up with a vociferous awareness campaign, you run the danger of becoming a referential brand: “Yeah, we’re just like X only we’ve been around longer.” You need to retool your messages to stand apart, even if it is as simple as being sure to include your years of expertise in your outreach.

4. Your brand expression looks dated. Ideally your original brand strategy was both cutting edge and sustainable. But sometimes market tastes shift beneath you. Just look at all of the companies out there with the word “cyber” in their name, or, more recently, how many logos have all lowercase, san-serif, colorful fonts. Whether it’s an elegant refinement of your current logo or starting from scratch, your brand expression needs to match your cultural personality in tone and manner. You can’t credibly claim to be innovative if your logo is stuck in the 1980s.

5. You want to signal change. Sometimes you just need an opportunity to tell a new story. It could be because you have a change in business strategy, or new leadership, or you have identified a sizable shift in your core audiences. Perhaps you have merged with another firm and together have more to offer than the sum of your two parts. A refreshed look and feel, a new tagline – even a new name – may be what you need to attract attention, build awareness and capture the market share you desire.

Whatever the reason is for re-evaluating your brand strategy, whenever possible, existing brand equity should be retained. Always remember when you’re building your brand, whatever strategic and tactical plan you take on should be fact-based and built to achieve specific goals. Change should never be made simply for change’s sake.

Original article at: Business Observer

New York, NY (September 03, 2015) – Tenet is thrilled to be part of the 2015 Brand Innovation Summit taking place September 10-11 at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles. Sponsored by the Innovation Enterprise, it brings together more than 200 leaders in branding, marketing and design, and promises to spark fresh thinking for all those who take advantage of the opportunity.

Come join our workshop Human Strategies. Human Brands, where you’ll develop new approaches to building more human-centric brand experiences that resonate, ensure and drive returns. Together, we will engage in strategies using personas, journey mapping and concept poster exercises to reveal the pain points oftentimes associated with air travel (as well as with many other brand experiences). We will demonstrate how similar pain points were used as the catalyst to create design principles – and identify the core functional and emotional benefits that were used to develop and launch a first-class brand experience for the new Long Beach Airport terminal.

Register today to attend Tenet Partners’ Brand Strategy Innovation Workshop Human Strategies. Human Brands.

When:

Thursday, September 10, 2015, 2pm PST

Where:

The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites, Los Angeles

##About Tenet Partners

Formed from the merger of Brandlogic and CoreBrand, Tenet Partners is a brand innovation and marketing consultancy that helps companies create brand value and unearth business opportunities by putting customers at the center of their business strategies.

New York, NY (August 11, 2015) – With back-to-school spending heating up, Tenet Partners, a leading brand innovation and marketing firm, today revealed its ranking of the Top 20 Most Powerful “Back-to-School” Retail Brands. Barnes & Noble claims the top position, with Target and Walmart rounding out the Top 3 companies.

The Top 20 Most Powerful “Back-to-School” Retail Brands are ranked by a unique, quantitative measure called BrandPower as measured through Tenet’s CoreBrand^® Index. The CoreBrand Index, a landmark study conducted continuously since 1990, is based upon an annual U.S. survey of approximately ten thousand consumer opinion elites and business-decision makers. Tapping the CoreBrand Index, the BrandPower score is a weighted composite of two key metrics that contribute to a brand’s ability to drive long-term growth: Familiarity and Favorability. Familiarity measures awareness of the brand. Favorability is the perception of the brand (among those who are well aware of it), and is based upon three attributes that tie directly to future business performance: Overall Reputation, Perception of Management, and Investment Potential.

Key Findings

• *Barnes & Noble leads as the #1 Most Powerful “Back-to-School” Retail Brand. * With a BrandPower score of 66.6, both Barnes & Noble’s Familiarity (degree of awareness) and Favorability scores (positive perception) remained constant year-over-year. Examining the three dimensions that contribute to Favorability – the company’s Perception of Management score experienced the highest gain year-over-year, a strong indicator that investors and business-decision makers are confident in leadership’s ability to drive company success and future growth. Demonstrating its ability to remain agile in a changing retail environment, the company recently spun-off its college bookstore unit from its retail and Nook businesses. As Barnes and Noble Education, the new company is poised to expand the number of bookstore locations across college campuses. It also has plans to further its digital presence through its e-textbook app, Yuzu, as well as through new products.

• *Big-box retailers dominate the Top 20 ranking with a total of eight brands hailing from the category. * This year’s big box retail brands include: Target (#2), Walmart (#3), Bed Bath & Beyond (#4), Kohl’s (#7), IKEA (#8), Best Buy (#9), Sam’s Club (#14) and Big Lots (#15). Walmart, IKEA, Best Buy, and Big Lots demonstrated particularly strong improvements, gaining year-over-year on both dimensions of BrandPower (Familiarity and Favorability).
  
  Despite the threat of online shopping taking over physical stores, the BrandPower of big-box retailers has been on the rise. Average Familiarity and Favorability has steadily increased year-over-year since 2011.
  
  A collective focus on digital and omnichannel innovation have allowed these traditional big box stores to reimagine their customers’ path to purchase. By offering new conveniences and incentives to shop both in-store and online, they have been able to remain competitive, while also alluring a key demographic: Millennials. Walmart (#3) has acquired more than a dozen technology companies in the past year, many of which have contributed to major improvements and changes to its e-commerce properties. According to the company’s 2015 annual report, e-commerce sales rose faster than the market globally last year at approximately 22 percent. In addition, the company also launched an online price-matching service last year. To gear up for back-to-school, the company took online prices to all-time low, and is offering free shipping to student dormitories on all orders over $35.

• *E-commerce giant Amazon (#5) demonstrates the strongest brand momentum *, improving on both Familiarity and Favorability year-over-year. Across the Top 20, the company earned the highest Favorability score (71.3, just edging out Barnes & Noble’s 71.2). Across the three dimensions of Favorability, Amazon witnessed notable gains across each attribute: Overall Reputation, Perception of Management and Investment Potential. While online retailing currently accounts for only 7% of U.S. retail sales, Amazon continues to hold an enviable position in the retail sector. Last quarter, the company made a $92 million profit and for the first time in its 30-year history, garnered a market value that exceeded Walmart. As further evidence of its rapid growth, analysts at the Cowen securities firm recently predicted that Amazon would overtake Macy’s as the No.1 U.S. apparel retailer within two years. The company was also a ‘top-riser’ on Tenet’s 2015 Top 100 Most Powerful Brands report released in May. The company jumped 20 spots to enter at #65 among the 100 most powerful brands in the U.S.

• Office supply stores, including Staples (#11), Office Depot (#16), and OfficeMax grapple with increased competition from other big-box stores and e-retailer giants. Entering the Top 20 at #11 with a BrandPower of 52.1, Staples is the uncontested category leader. However, over the last few years, Staples has struggled to maintain its competitive advantage. In March 2014, the company announced it would close 225 underperforming stores in North America by 2015. More recently, it announced plans to acquire Office Depot for $6.3 billion, a move which analysts estimate would likely result in additional store closings; noting that about half of Staples stores are within five miles of an Office Depot store, bringing into question the quantity and location of many their outposts.

• Apparel brands, including Old Navy (#6), Abercrombie & Fitch (#18), Aéropostale (#19) and Urban Outfitters (#20) struggle to remain relevant; representing some of the lowest ranked companies. While once some of the most popular clothing brands among teen shoppers, these companies have seen sales unravel in recent years. In terms of their respective BrandPower scores, Abercrombie & Fitch and Aéropostale experienced the sharpest declines across each dimension of Favorability. Contributing to its decline in Overall Reputation, Abercrombie & Fitch made headlines for a number of reasons over the past few years. From being accused of purposefully excluding plus-sized customers, to (now ex-CEO) Mike Jeffries’ public statements that he wants only “thin and beautiful” people to shop in his stores, to facing a discrimination lawsuit where it was accused of turning down a Muslim job applicant because she wore a hijab, these series of events have left the brand’s future in jeopardy, with investors and customers questioning the company’s integrity and relevancy in today’s marketplace.

• Specialty brand, LensCrafters, enters the Top 20 at #10. With a BrandPower of 52.9, the international eyewear retailer experienced significant gains on Familiarity over the past few years as well as on Overall Reputation and Perception of Management. A division of Luxottica Group, the company reported an increase in store sales in 2014, up 1.8%. A key ingredient of the company’s success has been its continued focus on the in-store experience. In 2012, the company launched ‘myLook’ mirror, a custom-built digital mirror installation. Bringing together facial recognition technology and multiple digital cameras, it allows customers to see digital photos of themselves when trying on different frames. Using a touch screen, the customer can select among different looks and upload and share the photos via email, Facebook, and Twitter. In time for back-to-school season, the company is also educating customers of the importance of annual eye exams. With comprehensive vision care information on its website and through its partnership with OneSight, the company provides free eye exams and prescription glasses to people in need, illustrating its corporate commitment and responsiveness to customers’ needs as well as its role as a good corporate citizen.

Commenting on the Top 20 Most Powerful “Back-to-School” Retail Brands, Steve Makadok, Partner of Tenet’s CoreBrand Analytics practice, said: “While big box retailers demonstrate the biggest gains on BrandPower, the key to their staying power will be continued innovations in digital and the omnichannel brand experience. Brands falling out of favor with consumers and investors are struggling to keep pace with the change in retail. These brands would benefit from a renewed focus in three key areas: customer experience, product and brand innovation, as well as improvements across channels, including digital and mobile.”

The Top 20 Most Powerful “Back-to-School” Retail Brands

Indicates a significantly higher Familiarity/Favorability vs. 2014

Indicates a significantly lower Familiarity/Favorability vs. 2014

Indicates an insignificant change of only +/- .5 or less year-over-year

Methodology

A company’s BrandPower score is determined by a survey of approximately ten thousand influential people on two key brand metrics: Familiarity and Favorability. This carefully screened audience, representing opinion elites/business-decision makers at the top 20 percent of American corporations are polled on the following:

Familiarity – Respondents are considered to be familiar with a brand if they state that they know more than just the company name. Familiarity scores can range from 0 to 100.

Favorability – Respondents familiar with a corporation are then asked about three dimensions that together, form a Favorability score, also on a scale of 0 to 100.

• Overall Reputation – Do you have a favorable impression of the corporate brand?
• Perception of Management – What is your perception of the company’s management? How would you assess the way senior leadership leads the enterprise and engages stakeholders? Does leadership have future-forward outlook on the market in which it operates, as well as on the competition?
• Investment Potential – Would you invest in this company?

BrandPower is calculated as a function of Familiarity and Favorability, enabling easy comparison among competitors, against industry averages and against world-class brands.

About this ranking

The starting point for determining the Top 20 Most Powerful ‘Back-to-School’ Retail Brands is the CoreBrand^® Index (CBI) – a quantitative database based on a continuous benchmark tracking survey of nearly 1,000 companies across 50 industries. The study has been in the field continuously since 1990.

About Tenet Partners

Formed from the merger of Brandlogic and CoreBrand, Tenet Partners is a brand innovation and marketing consultancy that helps companies create brand value and unearth business opportunities by putting customers at the center of their business strategies.

For more information, please contact:
Russ Napolitano
Chief Operating Officer
Tenet Partners
+ 1 212 329-3035
rnapolitano@tenetpartners.com

New York, NY (July 07, 2015) – With the busy summer travel season officially kicking off this week, Tenet Partners, a leading brand innovation and marketing consultancy, today revealed its ranking of the Top 15 Most Powerful Travel and Entertainment Brands. The Walt Disney Company leads as the number #1 brand, with Hilton Hotels & Resorts and Marriott International taking the second and third place, respectively.

The Top 15 Most Powerful Travel and Entertainment Brands are ranked by a unique, quantitative measure called BrandPower. Based upon an annual US survey of approximately ten thousand opinion elites and business-decision makers, BrandPower is a weighted composite of two key metrics that contribute to a brand’s ability to drive long-term growth: Familiarity and Favorability. Familiarity measures awareness of the brand. Favorability is the perception of the brand (among those who are well aware of it), and is based upon three attributes that tie directly to future business performance: Overall Reputation, Perception of Management, and Investment Potential.

Key Findings

• The Walt Disney Company leads as the #1 Most Powerful Travel and Entertainment Brand. With a BrandPower of 75.8, both its Familiarity (degree of awareness) and Favorability (positive perception) increased year-over-year. Across the three dimensions that together form Favorability: Overall Reputation, Perception of Management and Investment Potential, the past year proved to be a strong one for the company, as each dimension reached its highest point since 2010. The company was also a strong performer on Tenet’s 2015 Top 100 Most Powerful Brands, taking the #4 position.

• Hotel & Entertainment brands dominate the Top 15 ranking with a total of eight brands hailing from the category, including Walt Disney (#1), Hilton Hotels & Resorts (#2), Marriott International (#3), Trump Organization (#4), MGM Resorts International (#10), Las Vegas Sands (#11), Caesars Entertainment (#12) and Starwood Hotels & Resorts (#15). While hotel brands are the most represented across the Top 15, most of these brands’ Favorability scores (with the exception of Disney) experienced some of the sharpest declines year-over-year. These findings signal that opinion elites/business-decision makers (frequent travelers themselves) have diminishing confidence in these hotel brands, and in the eyes of these savvy investors – are less attractive financial assets, unlikely to outperform their travel and entertainment peers in the sector.

• Hilton Hotels & Resorts and Marriott International: As overall awareness (Familiarity) of these brands continues to grow, but with Favorability declining, this movement indicates that their respective brand equities and reputations aren’t necessarily moving their brand in a positive direction. While consumers’ are becoming more aware of these companies, their confidence regarding their overall growth, leadership, and ability to secure future earnings is waning.
  
  The past five years proved to be difficult for the nation’s hotel industry. Faced with declining demand for rooms, increased construction costs, and the rising cost of fuel, many hotel companies struggled to grow their brands. However, coming out of the recession, both Hilton and Marriott have moved swiftly to address consumers’ evolving needs and desires. Hilton continues to be on the forefront of social media and digital innovation. Last year, the company was recognized by Travel + Leisure for their award-winning “International Use it or Lose it Week” campaign, in which together with Foursquare, created geo-targeted check-in ads to remind people to take full advantage of their vacation days.
  
  Marriott faced a number of challenges this past year, contributing to its decline in Favorability. From facing stiff competition from peer-to-peer booking site, Airbnb, to falling short on revenue earnings to confronting a public controversy around its decision to block guest WiFi, the company is now undertaking a major shift in its strategy to appeal to the next generation of consumers: millennial travelers. The company’s recent efforts to tap into this growing audience include launching a rooftop picnic pop-up in London and teaming up with Netflix to become the first major hotel chain to offer Netflix-enabled TVs in every room.

• Leading airline brands, including United Airlines (#6), Delta Air Lines (#7), and US Airways (#14) demonstrate the strongest brand momentum across the Top 15, increasing on both dimensions of BrandPower: Familiarity and Favorability. Not only have these three brands grown their overall awareness and improved upon their corporate reputation year-over-year, but have done so consistently since 2010. Southwest, consistently rated as one of the top airlines in customer service, has shown an increase in year-over-year Favorability.
  
  Across the industry, more recent declines in oil prices following the recession have helped airlines add more routes and offer more affordable flights, in turn allowing them to expand their market presence and service networks. When American Airlines (#5), the leading airline brand, and US Airways merged in 2013 it created the world’s biggest airline. Taking the American Airlines name, it absorbed a global network of nearly 6,700 flights to more than 330 destinations across 50 countries. Since 2005, mergers have reduced the US’s major airlines brands from nine to four. American, United, Delta and Southwest now control more than 80% of the US market.
  
  While expanding their market presence, working to provide superior customer service and build customer loyalty, have long been key guiding principles of these leading airline brands. Innovations in in-flight entertainment, product enhancements that include larger over-head storage and extra legroom space, to smartphone apps that allow customers to better manage and plan their travel experience, have all played a vital role boosting consumer awareness, but also in creating stronger brand experiences and associations.

• Rental car brands, with only two brands represented amongst the Top 15, demonstrated a wide disparity in terms of their performance. Avis Budget Group (#9) outperformed competitor Hertz Global (#13) by a wide margin, earning a BrandPower score of 40.4, 11 points higher than Hertz. Across the board, Avis Budget Group improved year-over-year on Familiarity and across the three dimensions of Favorability: Overall Reputation, Perception of Management, and Investment Potential.
  
  Despite the wave of auto recalls that hit the auto industry this past year, the rental car industry has fared well. Both Avis Budget Group and Hertz Global Holdings have reduced their fleets, helping them increase their prices. In the wake of splitting its auto and construction-equipment businesses into two companies, Hertz encountered a corporate accounting error, which marred three years of its financial reports, and then released a 3 percent decline in sales year-over-year. Meanwhile, Avis Budget saw shares grow 50 percent in 2014.

“While hotels are well represented on this year’s Top Travel and Entertainment Brands, they are under pressure from weaker corporate reputations,” said Steve Makadok, Partner of Tenet’s CoreBrand Analytics practice. “Benefiting from high awareness in the marketplace, the challenge – and opportunity for these brands is to build on their existing brand equity and focus on creating more meaningful, innovative and compelling customer experiences that will allow them to drive long-term growth and enterprise value.”

The Top 15 Most Powerful Travel & Entertainment Brands

Indicates a significantly lower Familiarity/Favorability vs. 2014

Indicates a significantly higher Familiarity/Favorability vs. 2014

Indicates a change of only +/- .5 year-over-year

Methodology

A company’s BrandPower score is determined by a survey of approximately ten thousand influential people on two key brand metrics: Familiarity and Favorability. This carefully screened audience, representing opinion elites/business-decision-makers at the top 20 percent of American corporations are polled on the following:

Familiarity – Respondents are considered to be familiar with a brand if they state that they know more than just the company name. Familiarity scores can range from 0 to 100.

Favorability – Respondents familiar with a corporation are then asked about three dimensions that together, form a Favorability score, also on a scale of 0 to 100.

• Overall Reputation – Do you have a favorable impression of the corporate brand?
• Perception of Management – What is your perception of the company’s management? How would you assess the way senior leadership leads the enterprise and engages stakeholders? Does leadership have future-forward outlook on the market in which it operates, as well as on the competition?
• Investment Potential – Would you invest in this company?

BrandPower is calculated as a function of Familiarity and Favorability, enabling easy comparison among competitors, against industry averages and against world-class brands.

About this ranking

The starting point for determining the Top 15 Most Powerful Travel and Entertainment Brands is the CoreBrand^® Index (CBI) – a quantitative database based on a continuous benchmark tracking survey of nearly 1,000 companies across 50 industries. The study has been in the field continuously since 1990.

About Tenet Partners

Formed from the merger of Brandlogic and CoreBrand, Tenet Partners is a brand innovation and marketing consultancy that helps companies create brand value and unearth business opportunities by putting customers at the center of their business strategies.

For more information, please contact:
Russ Napolitano
Chief Operating Officer
Tenet Partners
+ 1 212 329-3035
rnapolitano@tenetpartners.com

New York, NY (May 12, 2015) – Tenet Partners℠, a leading brand innovation and marketing consultancy, released today its 8th annual Top 100 Most Powerful Brands report, which ranks the top 100 corporate brands in terms of market awareness and reputation.

The Coca-Cola Company continues its lead as the #1 Most Powerful Brand – a distinction it has held since the Top 100 was first created in 2008. Amazon (#65) having jumped 20 places leads as the Top 100 ‘top riser.’ Apple (#5) continues it meteoric rise on the ranking, moving up five places from #10 last year. Since 2010, the tech giant has continued to strengthen its BrandPower score and climbed an impressive fifty-one places over the past five years.

Our findings show that some of the fastest-rising brands: Amazon (#65, +20), Intel (#94, +14), Google (#15, +11), and Apple (#5, +5), are outpacing their peers by reimaging customer experience. Through strategic acquisitions, collaborative brand partnerships, and continued investment in R&D, these leading brands are transforming their offerings to deliver greater value to their customers, businesses, and shareholders.

“The Top 100 Most Powerful Brands demonstrate that value creation stems from sustained investment to drive brand-led innovation and compelling customer experiences,” said Hampton Bridwell, CEO of Tenet Partners. By successfully fueling their business strategies with a more holistic approach to brand, digital and service design to meet customers’ needs and aspirations across diverse channels, the Top 100 brands are spurring growth – and creating market advantage over both the short and long term.”

Each year, Tenet Partners analyzes the data in the CoreBrand^® Index (CBI) to determine the Top 100 Most Powerful Brands based on high market awareness and positive brand perceptions. Business decision makers at the top 20% of American corporations (VP level and above – representing the investment community, potential business partners, and business customers) are surveyed on two key metrics that contribute to a brand’s strength:

• Familiarity – Measures awareness of the brand. Respondents are considered to be familiar with a brand if they state they know more than just the company name. Familiarity scores range from 0 to 100.
• Favorability – The perception of the brand, based on how it performs across three key attributes: Overall Reputation, Perception of Management, and Investment Potential. Favorability scores also range from 0 to 100.

The quantitative Familiarity and Favorability metrics are then combined into a composite score called BrandPower – and are reported on a 100-rank scale. In order to be in the Top 100 Most Powerful Brands, companies must be considered a corporate brand and have been publicity traded and tracked by the CoreBrand Index for more than five years.

“Good management – both of the brand and of a company – results in two outcomes: strong familiarity and high favorability,” said James Gregory, Chairman of Tenet Partners. “By uncovering these two critical dimensions that contribute to brand health, business-decision makers can gain important intelligence in all the areas that define business success.”

Key Findings

_BrandPower is growing significantly across the board_
Five years ago, the average BrandPower score for the Top 100 was 60.7. This year, the average BrandPower is 63.1. This momentum is the strongest since the recession, suggesting that as corporations continue to invest in strategically building and managing their brand, they regaining the confidence of business-decision makers.

_Consumer Cyclicals made the strongest showing in the Top 100_
Companies that depend on the business cycle and economic conditions – such as automotive, entertainment and retail – are the single largest group in the Top 100, representing a total of 37 brands. Hailing from the Hotel & Entertainment industry, Walt Disney (#4) leads as the strongest consumer cyclical. Within the sector overall, Retail is the most represented industry with 14 ranked companies. Barnes & Noble is the top retail brand, rising to #29 this year.

_Communication spending is up overall, with bigger spenders reaping the most benefit_
The ten brands that moved up the most in the rankings this year have increased spending to drive familiarity at a much greater rate than the ten brands that declined the most. This demonstrates that the right level of investment, strategically allocated, will produce significant results.

Notable BrandPower Winners for 2015

The Coca-Cola Company (#1) – The #1 Most Powerful Brand of 2015

The Coca-Cola Company continued its lead as the #1 Most Powerful Brand. The 125-year-old Coca-Cola Company never rests on its laurels and continues to evolve around the ever-changing needs and wants of consumers. After falling yeas in a row, Coke’s U.S. soft-drink volumes rose 2.5% last summer, thanks in part to the hit “Share a Coke” campaign that will return this year. Also, last year, the company responded to health-conscious consumers by introducing Coca-Cola Life, a reduced-calorie cola naturally sweetened with cane sugar and stevia leaf extract.

Amazon (#65) – The Top 100 ‘Top Riser’

Amazon’s BrandPower has been on the rise since 2010. The company jumped 20 spots from its previous 2014 #85 position to enter at #65 this year. The brand excels at responding to, and often exceeding, consumers’ expectations of convenience, selection, and price. Built on a culture of innovation, the company spent upwards of $9.1 billion in research and development in 2014. Data-driven content and email marketing is a key success factor for the company. By leveraging rich information about its users, Amazon is able to create exceptional and intimate customer experiences.

Apple (#5) – Fastest-rising brand amongst the top 10

Apple jumped from #10th to #5th this year– becoming the fastest-rising brand amongst the top 10. Both its Familiarity and Favorability scores have increased, due in large part of its innovative products and outstanding market performance. The tech giant is bringing diverse elements together – talent, brands, new technologies to maintain its reputation for outstanding, relevant customer experiences.

Intel (#94) – Top new entrant to the Top 100

The California chipmaker is a new entrant into Top 100, having jumped fourteen places from #108. In late 2013, Intel created a new business unit specifically aimed at the Internet of Things (loT). Although the loT business only accounted for about 4% of Intel’s sales and operating income, it exceeded the company’s struggling mobile division, which posted an operating loss of $4.2 billion. This move promises to make Intel an important part of what should become a multi-brand experience embedded in the everyday lives of consumers.

Key Sector Trends

Three industry sectors tracked in the CBI – Technology, Financial Services, and Automotive – have experienced profound shifts and changes following the 2008 financial crisis. By building dynamic brands that defy industry norms, these leaders are delivering new experiences and driving value through innovation.

Technology

Brands hailing from the technology sector stand out as Top 100 ‘top risers.’ Of the top 10 biggest risers on the ranking, tech brands make up the five biggest BrandPower movers: Amazon (#65, +20), Intel (#94, +14), eBay (#32, +13), IBM (#32, +13) and Google (#15, +11). Amazon’s rise over the last five years is remarkable; up 74 places since 2010. Although CEO Jeff Bezos is not one to shy away from disrupting the status quo – from experimenting with delivering drones (and making a splash by talking about them on CBS’s _60 Minutes_) to acquiring Internet of Things platform 2lemetry – his vision for the brand has remained intact: to be the most customer-centric company on earth. Google follows close on Amazon’s heels, rising 73 places since 2010. The company is continuing to invest enthusiastically, from acquiring Nest, to experimenting with self-driving cars, to its most recent collaboration with Johnson & Johnson to help develop a robot-assisted surgery platform. These initiatives are helping Google extend its reach not only in the marketplace, but also in consumers’ minds.

Financial Services

Morgan Stanley (#57, +9), Charles Schwab (#64, +10), Wells Fargo (#97, +13) all experienced significant increases in BrandPower, as the United States banking industry continues to recover from the global financial crisis. A key strategy for financial services brands has been a renewed focus on customer experience. For example, a hallmark of Well Fargo’s corporate vision is its “One Wells Fargo” initiative. With a diverse range of products and business – banking, investments, mortgage, and insurance – One Wells Fargo serves an enterprise-wide guiding principle. It offers a roadmap for engaging with customers across multiple business lines in addition to providing collaboration strategies across business units.

Automotive

After years of soft performance due to the recession, consumers are giving in to pent-up demand and are purchasing cars with a vengeance. According to tracking company Autodata, 16.5 million new autos hit the streets in 2014 – the highest number since the record of 16.9 million in the pre-recession days of 2006. Despite rising sales, the majority automotive companies slid in the BrandPower: Harley-Davidson (#10, -5), BMW (#21, -4), Volkswagen (#31, -4), Honda (#36, -6), Toyota (#42, -5), Volvo (#44, -8), Ford Motor (#49, +2), General Motors (#61, no change), Nissan Motors (#83, -6). Ford (#49, +2) is the uncontested industry leader, increasing its BrandPower year-over-year. Former President and CEO, Alan Mulally, has described Ford as being a technology company as much as a car company. The automaker is a leader among American car companies in hybrid technology, with its Fusion Energi winning 2013 Green Car of the Year. The company also pioneered enhancing the driver experience through technology with one of the first integrated connectivity systems, Ford Sync. Since its debut in 2007, the technology has continued to evolve and become more customer-friendly

The Most Powerful Brands of 2015 Website

View the full list of the Top 100 Most Powerful Brands. The full report is available to download by visiting tenetpartners.com/top100.

About Tenet Partners

Formed from the merger of Brandlogic and CoreBrand, Tenet Partners is a brand innovation and marketing consultancy that helps companies create brand value and unearth business opportunities by putting customers at the center of their business strategies.

For more information, please contact:

Russ Napolitano
Chief Operating Officer
Tenet Partners
+ 1 212 329-3035
rnapolitano@tenetpartners.com

New York, NY (April 27, 2015) – Tenet Partners, a leading brand innovation and marketing consultancy, announced the appointment of Steve Makadok as Partner of its CoreBrand™ Analytics practice.

Makadok, who brings to Tenet Partners more than twenty years of experience driving strategic business transformation, will play a pivotal role deepening and expanding new client relationships stemming from Tenet’s CoreBrand Analytics capabilities.

For 25 years, CoreBrand Analytics has provided corporate leaders with a robust suite of benchmarking and diagnostic tools, quantifying the link between brand strength and financial performance. Leveraging the CoreBrand Analytics portfolio and database, Makadok will help senior leaders gain valuable insights into how they can better measure – and enhance the impact of their brand-building efforts. These capabilities and unique insights include:

• Benchmarking the health and vitality of their corporate brand relative to competitors and aspirational peers
• Monitoring the impact and resilience of the corporate brand during a crisis
• Forecasting the optimal level of marketing investment to drive business performance and shareholder value
• Determining the financial value of the corporate brand to help in decision-making around mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures and licensing opportunities

“Today’s CMOs, CCOs and brand marketers are increasingly being asked to quantitatively support the rationale for their corporate brand investments – and truly require a multi-dimensional view of how their brand is driving financial performance.” said Makadok. “Tenet is a proven leader in corporate branding and brand measurement and I’m thrilled to be working alongside some of the brightest pioneers in the industry.”

Makadok comes to Tenet from the Reputation Institute where he served as Managing Director and Partner of North America. During his tenure at Reputation Institute, Makadok drove significant growth and oversaw relationships with world-class companies including Harley-Davidson, Fidelity Investments, Cigna, and Amway. Prior to the Reputation Institute, Steve held management positions at a number of brand consultancies, advertising agencies and marketing research firms, including Siegel & Gale, FutureBrand, Synovate and J. Walter Thompson. He earned an MBA in Marketing from Pace University’s Lubin School of Business and a dual Bachelors degree in Economics and Political Science from Stony Brook University.

Stepping into this new role marks Makadok’s return to CoreBrand Analytics. Prior to Brandlogic and CoreBrand joining forces and forming Tenet Partners in 2014, he served as Group Director of CoreBrand’s Brand Intelligence and Strategy practice from 1999 to 2002.

Commenting on the appointment, Jim Gregory, Chairman of Tenet Partners, said: “I am delighted to welcome Steve to Tenet Partners. Having previously been part of the CoreBand team, he brings with him proven success helping C-suite leaders drive growth and innovation at their organization. As we look to the future as Tenet Partners, Steve will be an instrumental part of our continued success, helping to solve some our clients most pressing challenges.”

About Tenet Partners

Formed from the merger of Brandlogic and CoreBrand, Tenet Partners is a brand innovation and marketing consultancy that helps companies create brand value and unearth business opportunities by putting customers at the center of their business strategies.

For more information, please contact:

Russ Napolitano
Chief Operating Officer
Tenet Partners
+ 1 212 329-3035
rnapolitano@tenetpartners.com

New York, NY (April 07, 2015) – Original article at: Clutch

The new research identifies leading firms with a demonstrated focus on Branding and Naming.

Today Clutch published its first report on leading Branding and Naming agencies in the US. The research identifies marketing and advertising agencies with a demonstrated focus on branding and/or naming services.

The leading Branding firms are:

Ologie, Bulldog Drummond, Matchstic, Salt Branding, Brandjuice, Tenet Partners, Your Majesty, UnitOneNine, Sensis, and Basic.

The leading naming firms are:

Zinzin, Namestormers, Brighter Naming, Bulldog Drummond, and Matchstic.

“A company’s brand is, without question, its most valuable asset.” stated Chandler Dunklin, Research Analyst at Clutch. “These agencies have a proven track record of enhancing a company’s ability to tell its story to the customer.”

Clutch analysts reached out to North American companies with significant experience strengthening brands for a variety of clients from startups to enterprise firms. The top agencies were selected based on numerous quantitative and qualitative factors, including company experience, market presence, positive client feedback, and industry recognition and accolades.

Clutch’s effort to identify leading Branding and Naming agencies is ongoing, and the firm encourages companies to apply to participate in future research updates. Upcoming publications will highlight other areas within the marketing and advertising industry.

The full reports and reviews can be found at:

https://clutch.co/agencies/branding/research

https://clutch.co/agencies/branding

https://clutch.co/agencies/naming/research

https://clutch.co/agencies/naming

New York, NY (March 27, 2015) – Original article at: Business Observer

I have loved JetBlue since the beginning of time — JetBlue’s time that is. I thought the concept of founder David Neeleman was simply ingenious — to offer a low-cost airline, but also a pleasant customer experience. JetBlue managed and nurtured that customer experience from the first time you visited its website to look for tickets to the time you got off the plane at your destination. It was brilliant, differentiating and successful; it earned the airline “most admired” status.

Neeleman often flew on these flights to actually experience “the customer experience.” Not only that, but he served beverages and snacks to the travelers and talked to them all — every single one on the flight. I know because that is how I first met him. He sat in the last row of the plane. Why? Because that is row 27 and it doesn’t recline. He wanted to make sure he understood the experience. Pleasing the customer was paramount; pleasing the CEO was not so important.

The idea of giving reasonable legroom to customers was more important than losing a row of revenue. Putting video monitors at each seat to allow streaming of 36 television channels was a novel idea at the time. If a monitor didn’t work and you couldn’t get another seat, then you would get a refund for a portion of your trip. Unbelievable.

JetBlue was an airline that understood customer experience, and it earned my brand loyalty. Its “True Blue” rewards program was a relatively quick way to get free tickets for loyal customers. It was a simple and easy way to get miles and to cash them in. Everything operated through the company’s website, which was intuitive and easy to use.

Not only did Neeleman put customers first, he also put employees at the top of the pyramid — one of the first airlines to do so. In 2002, he put his entire salary and bonus into the JetBlue Crewmember Crisis Fund, which was established for employees who had fallen on financial hardship. Employees loved, respected and wanted to work for him.

Unfortunately, when an epic ice storm stranded JetBlue passengers on the runway on Valentine’s Day in 2007, it led the company’s board of directors to oust Neeleman as CEO in what seems to be a bit of an overreaction. Certainly there were operational deficiencies, and Neeleman’s response that he was “mortified” didn’t help. In any event, with new management in place, changes started to come to JetBlue…slowly at first, but the pace of change picked up and like a jet reaching takeoff the acceleration is continuing.

Under the new management, prices started inching up at a steady pace. JetBlue was known for very competitive fare, but that was changing and prices went from inexpensive to downright steep. If a customer wanted to make changes to an itinerary it used to cost only a minimal amount. After all, what does a change truly cost an airline when the customer does the work online? Now, changes to itineraries were becoming significantly more expensive. Exit rows were long sought after by the taller passengers, and the airline decided to charge more for the “extra legroom seats.” While just slightly more expensive at $10 in the beginning, they became much more expensive over time at $40 — a 400% increase.

When many of the other airlines added baggage fees, JetBlue resisted. But rumors persist that they will begin charging for checking bags in the near future. Shareholders have been demanding revenue and cash flow improvements, which is fine, but it shouldn’t be coming at the cost of the brand. These nickel and dime changes are having an impact on the atmosphere of the customer experience. The fun is fading on JetBlue and it is becoming a generic airline. With each change the brand is becoming a little more tarnished and a little more pedestrian. In the past I always talked about and promoted JetBlue — I even featured it in one of my books. Unfortunately, my brand loyalty is fading.

You can always tell when a company’s brand is going through a brand inflection point. It begins to hype things that don’t seem natural to the brand. JetBlue is currently promoting a concept called, “Flying it Forward,” which feels a little more like a publicity stunt than a genuinely altruistic good deed. Decide for yourself here:

The most painfully obvious move of its desperation is JetBlue’s plan to add a first-class section to its seating. This destroys the last vestige of its original, simple and brilliant brand concept of egalitarian seating. JetBlue is losing what got it to the party — its differentiated brand.

How do all of these changes affect the bottom line performance? JetBlue (JBLU) stock is up 100% over the past 52 weeks. The shareholders are clearly pleased with the changes. Butif JetBlue’s all-important on time arrivals start slipping, then I’m definitely going to look for airline alternatives for my travel.

New York, NY (February 27, 2015) – Original article at: Business Observer

Knowing your customer and managing the purchasing experience is so important that an entire business marketing science has been built around the process. Customer Experience Management, or CEM, is about understanding your customers and the journey they travel to enjoy the products or services you have sold them.

When you initially think of customers, the “consumer” comes to mind. But the ultimate consumer can be different depending on the complex needs of businesses today.

Customers come in two basic varieties. One group consists of the customers who generate revenue by purchasing goods and services — these are at the top of the food chain. These revenue customers are essentially the individuals or businesses who purchase from your company.

The second group is composed of the internal customers who make the selling possible. They include employees, investors, management, vendors, etc., each with a stake in the company’s success.

When these internal teams pull together, they create a bond with the revenue customer that is the essence of brand loyalty. These bonds are created by a deliberate building of relationships at the smallest element of trust. Wal-Mart’s founder, Sam Walton, described it: “The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary.”

Here are some tips to getting to know your customers and starting the journey to the best customer service.

Know your customers as well as they know you
OK, it may be impractical to know each one individually, but you should make every effort to know the basic demographics and motivations of your customers. “Big Data” is everywhere within your company to inform you about your customers’ buying habits. All you need to do is mine and organize the data to get useful and actionable insights into your customers.

Customers want to know more about your company
What do you stand for? What do you believe in? What are your hiring practices? How do you treat employees? What nonprofit charities do you support? What are you doing to make your company more sustainable? All of these things matter more now than they did in the past ,and it is helpful to have a written policy that addresses each of your supporting pillars.

Customers love to be acknowledged
In the TV show “Cheers” there is a line in the title song, “Where everyone knows your name.” That says everything about how to keep your customers coming back. Train your employees to remember customer names and your loyalty ratings will skyrocket.

Customers love a thoughtful surprise
I was recently passing an upscale jewelry store on a crowded sidewalk and asked a young man near the entrance of the store if he could replace batteries in a Swatch Watch. I felt a little embarrassed to even ask since the store carried only upscale watches. The young man said, “Yes, we can do that for you,” and took the watch and came back in a few minutes with a new battery. I asked how much I owed and he said it was a gift from the owner. I then went into the store and spent the next several hours doing my holiday shopping.

I learned later that the young man was the owner of the store; he was the grandson of the founder, who believed in great customer service. His friendly investment of a few minutes time and a watch battery resulted in a significant ROI and a new customer who would be telling his friends about this great store.

Know your customers personally
Take the time to visit with them for a few minutes. Try to understand how their experience with your company and your brands fit into their lives. How far did they travel to make this purchase? How did they hear about you? How long have they been purchasing from you? What role does their experience with your company and products fulfill for them?

If you can’t do this one-on-one, then consider hiring a professional research firm to better understand your customers. This research can be the source of expanding to new territories and the development of new products and services for your company.

The bottom line with customer service is that customers want someone who will listen and solve their problem and deliver what they promise. If customers see you as someone who cares about their needs, you will no doubt be rewarded with their business the next time they make a purchase.

New York, NY (February 23, 2015) – Original article at: Levick Energy

Over the past decade, the energy industry has been impacted by countless significant events. While some were the result of human forces and others were natural occurrences, in all cases they changed the way that the public perceives the companies in charge of extracting, producing, and distributing energy resources.

During this decade, we’ve seen the largest-ever marine oil spill, the biggest power outage in U.S. history, and questions about nuclear safety post-Fukushima. We’ve seen activists seize control of our energy dialogues and turn the tide of public opinion on promising domestic energy sources. We’ve seen the impact that companies with only tangential intersections to the energy industry can have on the overall perceptions of the industry and its component sectors. And today, we are experiencing a major collapse in the price of oil due to many interrelated factors including the fracking revolution, reduced demand in Asia and Europe due to weakening economies and new efficiency innovations.

In some cases, these sectors have suffered significant reputational and financial damage by events outside of their control. In collaboration with Tenet Partners, the leading brand measurement and valuation firm, we will dig into these trends and explore the factors that can impact the crude oil and petroleum refining segments of the energy industry. Our goal through this project is to understand the ways in which events can impact the “brand power” and short- and long-time influence of corporations and energy industry sectors. In so doing, we can better understand how industry can prepare and respond to events in ways that effectively mitigate the damage and preserve – or increase – their reputational assets.

Methodology

Each year, Tenet using CoreBrand Index^® surveys 10,000 business decision makers from the top 20 percent of US businesses with annual sales above $50 million to arrive at scores for familiarity and favorability, which reflect company size/recognition and quality, respectively. Familiarity represents a weighted percentage of survey respondents who recognize the brand being evaluated. Only respondents who are familiar with a brand – knowing more than just the company name – are asked to rate the three dimensions of favorability on a four-point scale: overall reputation, perception of management and investment potential.

Familiarity and favorability scores are then combined into a single BrandPower score and then used to calculate the brand equity value (BEV) – comprising BrandPower, familiarity and favorability – of each company, both as a dollar value and as a percentage of the company’s market cap.

With data extending back to 1990, Tenet is able to measure changes in a company’s BEV from a specific event, such as a major oil spill or major regional power outages. This lets Tenet determine the magnitude of the impact the event has had on BEV, both as a dollar amount and as a percentage of market cap.

Part 1: Crude Oil Producers and Petroleum Refiners Both Demonstrate High Reputational Sensitivity to Market Disruptions

For background on this project, including a summary of the methodology used to create the data, please see the Introduction to Energy Branding Trends.

CRUDE OIL: Familiarity and Favorability 2000-2013

PETROLEUM REFINING: Familiarity and Favorability 2000-2013

Analysis:

This is an illustrative case study of how different links in a supply chain can show startling differences in how they are influenced by given events over time – and how their brands and reputations are impacted.

Sample companies in Crude Oil: Anadarko Petroleum, Apache Corporation, Baker Hughes, Canada Southern Petroleum, Enterprise Products, Halliburton.

Sample companies in Petroleum Refining: Ashland, BP, Citgo Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, Hess, Murphy Oil, Occidental Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, Tesoro Corporation, Valero Energy.

Since 2000, both the crude oil sector and the petroleum refining sector have seen wide fluctuations in price and other major news and political events. Consumers have been impacted more directly by price and market gyrations in these sectors as prices they pay at the pump, to heat their homes, and for many of their energy needs are subsequently affected.

The corporate brands of both sectors – petroleum refining and crude oil – are highly sensitive to market conditions, price fluctuations and accidents, which make reputation management an important component of corporate governance. Understanding the long term trends of each segment of the industry combined with an individual company performance within an industry is fundamental to managing the impact of the brand on corporate enterprise value.

Corporate communications officers can use this information in their long-term strategic planning as they look to develop communications and government affairs plans. Given the fluidity of consumer opinions in the crude oil and petroleum refining sectors, companies have to be more reactive in the short term to protect and promote their reputations. Failure to respond quickly to events – or significant delays in doing so – comes with a much steeper reputational cost. As a best practice, companies should adopt a long-term strategy to consistently increase their brand valuation year after year.