New York, NY (November 17, 2015) – Recently, Tenet Partners was ranked highly among a nationwide evaluation of Branding Agencies by research firm Clutch. Clutch is located in Washington, DC and has the most extensive research coverage on digital, branding, and development agencies worldwide.
Clutch’s research algorithm took into account many things: our previous work, our client base, and our proven ability to deliver on past branding, digital strategy, and design projects. With our client references and the other factors considered, we were mapped against the other Branding Agencies with only the top performing agencies making the Leaders Matrix.
In addition to one of the top spots among Branding Agencies nationwide, we were recognized as the leader among New York Branding Agencies. The external recognition for our work is great but the best part of the research process were the interviews Clutch conducted with three of our clients. Here’s what they had to say:
It was rewarding to see all of the great things our clients said about us and reinforces the fact that Tenet Partners is committed to delivering meaningful and compelling branding and marketing experiences to our clients.
New York, NY (November 16, 2015) – Tenet Partners, a leading brand innovation and marketing firm, is pleased to announce the release of a new report, “The Strong Link Between Advertising and Stock Value,” by Chairman Jim Gregory. Published by the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), the report is an updated edition of Gregory’s and CoreBrand’s 1997 landmark report “The Impact of Advertising on Stock Performance.”
The field of advertising and marketing communications has changed dramatically since 1997. Despite the advances in technology, data, and analytics, Gregory argues that advertising is still commonly viewed as a burdensome cost with vague returns. Based on his breakthrough research utilizing Tenet Partners’ CoreBrand® Index (CBI), a quantitative research vehicle that has continuously tracked since 1990 the reputations and financial performance of nearly 1,000 publicly traded companies across 50 industries, the report reveals a stunning correlation between advertising and brand image – 30 percent of brand image is attributable to advertising spending. Moreover, a longitudinal analysis of 220 public companies in the CBI reveals that brand image has a direct impact on earnings growth and stock performance.
The report is divided into three key sections, in which Gregory skillfully explores the effect of a company’s brand communications on its image and its return on investments.
Dynamic Relationships
Over many years of research and analysis, Gregory has identified quantitative relationships between advertising and corporate brand image and between corporate brand image and stock price. The report examines the most significant factors driving corporate brand image, including advertising spending, attributing 30 percent, the most important factor in determining image with other forms of communications, such as public relations, investor relations, employee relations, and social media contributing an additional 23 percent. Additionally, the findings reveal how different levels of advertising spending affect stock price, and therefore, shareholder value. As a result, the report sheds light on how a benefit/cost ratio can then be developed, providing valuable insights and methods for helping to set communication strategies as well as offering practical evidence of how a company’s advertising expenditure works in driving corporate reputation.
The Solid Link Between Corporate Brand Advertising and Corporate Brand Image
This section identifies The Advertising Efficiency Curve, presenting several relationships between corporate brand image and advertising. The findings show that as companies begin to advertise aggressively, a very high rate of return often immediately follows. This momentum begins to slow down over time as the company builds a strong image, and then moves from a position of creating an image to one of maintaining it. As a company moves along the curve, the report provides key strategies for companies to consider for maximizing the return of their advertising dollars.
Speaking a Common Language: CEOs & Communicators on the Same Page
With a demand for corporations to fully understand and to use brand image as a tool to give their company a distinct competitive advantage, this section explains how the frameworks and models presented can be applied to decipher advertising’s impact on corporate image and the resulting effect on ROI. Furthermore, it explains how these models offer a common language between the communications department, CEO and CFO, providing a venue for mutual respect and common interest for the sometimes adversarial relationship of the CEO and communicator.
Commenting on the release of “The Strong Link Between Advertising and Stock Value,” Gregory said: “Given how high the stakes are in the investment world, companies cannot afford to dismiss anything that can support enterprise value – and that means the role of advertising is crucial. This finding is consistent with that we saw in 1997 with the release of ‘The Impact of Advertising on Stock Performance.’ However, with this updated edition, we offer an analysis on larger scale – enlarging our base to 220 companies and quantifying our image and stock-price models in even greater detail.”
Marsha Appel, 4A’s Senior Vice President, Research, added, “The original 1997 paper was one of the 4A’s most popular publications, so we are proud to issue the new report. It documents a stunning correlation between advertising expenditures and brand image, and between image and stock price, proving what good marketers have always known—that advertising works.”
This updated edition contains also two case studies that illustrate the impact of advertising on stock performance, Aflac and a B2B case study in a commodity industry. Both cases help to demonstrate that when strategically allocated, paid media has proven to be a strong contributor to brand growth.
To purchase “The Strong Link Between Advertising and Stock Value,” visit the 4A’s bookstore.
##About the Author
Jim Gregory is the Chairman of Tenet Partners, a brand innovation and marketing consultancy. Jim is credited with developing pioneering and innovative tools for measuring the power of brands and their impact on a corporation’s financial performance. He has written four books on creating value with brands: Marketing Corporate Image, Leveraging the Corporate Brand, Branding Across Borders, and The Best of Branding. Jim is also a founding member of the Marketing Accountability Standards Advisory Council (MASAC) and is a member of the Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB), where he is the co-chair of the Improving Financial Reporting Committee. Jim’s newest book, POWERHOUSE – The Secrets of Corporate Branding, will be released in January 2016.
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 visit us at tenetpartners.com and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
About the 4A‘s
The 4A‘s is the catalyst for bringing together the right people in the right place at the right time to address the advertising industry’s most critical business issues. We provide leadership, advocacy, guidance and community to our members and the industry at large, with proprietary access to the people, information and tools needed to make smarter management decisions. Our mission is to help agencies become more successful. www.aaaa.org.
For more information, please contact: Russ Napolitano Chief Operating Officer Tenet Partners + 1 212 329-3035 rnapolitano@tenetpartners.com
New York, NY (October 28, 2015) – Tenet Partners, a leading brand innovation and marketing firm, today released its third annual report on the most and least respected corporate brands – Brand Respect: The Most and Least Respected Corporate Brands of 2015. For the third consecutive year, The Coca-Cola Company tops the list of Most Respected Brands. Microsoft enters the ranking of Most Respected brands at #9, while Papa John’s, Foot Locker, and CVS Health join the ranking of the Least Respected companies.
The Brand Respect report correlates data determined by a survey of approximately 10,000 business decision-makers and opinion elites on two key metrics that contribute to a brand’s ability to drive long-term growth: Familiarity and Favorability. Brands with the highest Familiarity and Favorability are defined as most respected, while brands that are the most well known but have the lowest Favorability are considered the least respected.
“The respect a brand has earned, and can keep, speaks directly to its ability to remain competitive in today’s marketplace, said Hampton Bridwell, CEO and Managing Partner of Tenet Partners. “The Top 10 Most Respected Brands demonstrate the impact of a strong corporate reputation in building trust, loyalty and increased profitability. Meanwhile, the Top 10 Least Respected Brands – or simply the brands with the largest discrepancies between Familiarity and Favorability – need to think critically about the brand experiences they are creating in the marketplace and how they can regain the favor of consumers and investors.”
2015 Most Respected Brands
The Coca-Cola Company
PepsiCo
The Hershey Company
Bayer
Johnson & Johnson
Apple
Harley-Davidson
IBM
Microsoft
GE
Key Findings for the Most Respected Brands
Coca-Cola retains its top status for the third consecutive year. While the company’s Familiarity is up slightly year-over-year, its Favorability declined this year, reaching its lowest point since 2011. The company’s Investment Potential – the measure on which key stakeholders surveyed indicated whether or not they would invest in the company, has fallen sharply in recent years: decreasing 7.1 points since 2009. Its Overall Reputation and Perception Management has also taken a hit, each declining 3.9 points and 3.1 points respectively, since 2009. The iconic 125 year-old company and Tenet Partners’ #1 Most Powerful Brand for seven years running, is clearly at an inflection point. However, in a move to inspire increased consumer and investor confidence and grow revenue, CEO Muhtar Kent has pledged to boost media spending and brand-building initiatives by up to $1 billion by 2016.
Microsoft is new to the Most Respected list this year, having gained on both Familiarity and Favorability consistently over the past five years. The company saw notable gains across all three dimensions of Favorability: Overall Reputation, Perception of Management, and Investment Potential. While Investment Potential lags behind Overall Reputation and Perception of Management, analysts expect an improvement in earnings this year, due in large part to the latest version of its operating system, Windows 10 as well as from continued growth in the cloud-computing arena, which is continuing to find vigorous demand from enterprise customers.
Apple improved by 2 spots and places on the Most Respected list at #6 this year. Across the dimensions of Favorability, Overall Reputation and Perception of Management experienced the greatest gains, increasing 1.9 points and 1.2 points respectively. The company’s Investment Potential also increased this year, gaining 1 point year-over-year. Among the Top 10 Most Respected Brands, Apple is the fastest growing brand in terms of Favorability. Year-over-year, the average Favorability of the Top 10 Most Respected Brands fell by a tenth of a point, while Apple’s Favorability jumped significantly, 1.4 points this year. For the full fiscal 2014, Apple reported $182.8 billion in sales, setting a new company record. As further evidence of the company’s strong financial performance – Apple’s Investment Potential has climbed the most over the past five years, increasing 8.8 points since 2010. The company reported iPhone sales of 61.2 million in its most recent quarter, well above the 58 million that analysts had been expecting. Aside from its earnings, Apple is also returning more money to shareholders, expanding the capital return program from $140 billion to $200 billion. This includes a $140 billion share-buyback authorization and a new quarterly dividend rate of $0.52 a share.
Kellogg’s falls out a favor and drops off the Top 10 Most Respected Brands. The company has been struggling in recent quarters to drive earnings and innovation across its brand portfolio. Last year, the company saw sales drop 2% amid continued changing consumer sentiment towards a low-carb and protein heavy diet. Additionally, the continued growth of the Greek yogurt market, coupled with the rise of fast-food chains wooing consumers with cheaper breakfast alternatives, have also made it difficult for the company to maintain its strong standing.
A notable trend among the Top 10 Most Respected Brands is that they have demonstrated slow, stable, but consistent growth in their share prices. These standout brands, such as Johnson & Johnson (#5), Apple (#6), and Microsoft (#9), continue to deliver above average, double-digit operating margins and net profit – reflecting the ability of a strong brand to command premium pricing and revenue performance.
2015 Least Respected Brands
Delta Air Lines
H&R Block
Big Lots
Papa John’s
Denny’s
Rite Aid
JCPenney
Best Buy
Foot Locker
CVS Health
Key Findings for the Least Respected Brands
Delta Air Lines (#1), H&R Block (#2), and Big Lots (#3) maintain their Least Respected status from 2014, each retaining their previous rank from last year. Although Delta is the least respected among the group, its Favorability has been steadily improving – gaining 5 points since 2010. The company’s Perception of Management score has experienced the most notable gain, jumping 11 points since 2010. The company’s CEO, Richard Anderson, is largely credited with helping to rebuild the once bankrupt brand. From buying an oil refinery in 2012 to help control fuel costs, expanding the airline’s base across Asia, Europe, Latin America and the U.S., to reducing the company’s overall debt, signs seemingly point to Delta strengthening its corporate image and in turn, distancing itself from the Least Respected ranks in the years to come.
Papa John’s (#4), Foot Locker (#9), and CVS Health (#10) are all new to the Least Respected Brands this year. Papa John’s saw its Overall Reputation fall 8.1 points over the past five years – a key impediment to their performance. The company’s reputation, which also declined year-over-year, may have been damaged more recently by CEO John Schnatter’s public statements that in response to Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act, he would consider raising the cost of its pizza, cutting jobs, as well as closing a number of Papa John’s restaurants around the country.
Foot Locker returns to the Least Respected list after earning its way off last year. In 2013, the brand held the #10 spot. Year-over-year the company’s Favorability fell by .6 of a point with Overall Reputation declining a significant 3.2 points. Against the backdrop of heightened competition from Dick’s Sporting Goods and The Sports Authority, the athletic footwear and apparel retailer closed 136 stores during fiscal 2014. In its most recent earnings report management announced that it expects to have 40 fewer locations by the end of the calendar year. Also, the company announced that it would gradually phase out its Lady Foot Locker business over the next few years due to lagging performance, going from 567 locations in 2004 to 213 by the end of 2014.
CVS Health enters the Least Respected list at #10 despite the goodwill it received when it announced that it would stop selling cigarettes in its 7,700 stores. Since 2010, the company has experienced sharp declines across each of the three attributes of Favorability, with Overall Reputation and Investment Potential failing 11.7 and 8.5 points respectively. While the company’s decision to drop tobacco products garnered praise from consumers, Wall Street analysts were quick to raise concerns about how the move could impact the company’s bottom line. In the fourth quarter of 2014, the company reported that lost tobacco sales caused retail-operating profit to slip by 1.3%.
Best Buy moves from #5 in 2014 and registers at #8 this year. In recent years, the company has struggled to shake off its reputation as a “showroom” and stave off competition from Amazon.com. According to data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), the company has consistently been ranked as having one of worst customer satisfaction ratings. The company’s improved performance on Tenet’s Least Respected Brands can be attributed largely to its Perception of Management score, which jumped an impressive 11.8 points since 2010 and 2 points year-over-year. Since former CEO Brian Dunn resigned in 2012 and Hubert Joly took the reigns, the company has been reenergizing its efforts on customer service, e-commerce operations and overhauling its supply chain, which have helped to cut costs and improve efficiencies.
Linking Respect to Financial Performance
The 10 Least Respected Brands are largely characterized by having much lower profitability than the 10 Most Respected Brands list. While the Most Respected Brands appear to more nimbly adjust their business strategies to adapt to changing business conditions, the Least Respected Brands, conversely, tend to react more slowly in meeting consumers ever-changing needs and desires.
While Tenet expected to see the operating and net margin rates of the Most Respected companies outperform those of their counterparts on the Least Respected list, the average disparity stood out dramatically. Well respected corporations earn a number of benefits that impact financials including the ability to hire and retain talent, secure favorable terms from business partners/vendors, earn license to operate in a variety of markets and garner increased attention from Wall Street and the investment community at large.
About the data in this report
Tenet Partners’ Brand Respect scores are derived from the CoreBrand® Index, which provides the longest continuous quantitative benchmarking data, insights and corporate brand valuations for more than 1,000 companies across 50 industries. CBI research, conducted for 25 years since 1990, examines the corporate reputations of major public companies in the United States by polling more than 10,000 business decision-makers and opinion elites 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 a future-forward outlook on the market in which it operates, as well as on the competition?
Investment Potential – Would you invest in this company?
Brands with the highest Familiarity and Favorability are defined as Most Respected, while brands that are well-known among audiences (identified as the 100 brands in the CBI with the highest Familiarity) but have the lowest Favorability are considered the Least Respected.
*For further insights and data please view the 2015 Top 10 Most and Least Respected Brands SlideShare presentation here. *
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 visit us at tenetpartners.com and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
For more information, please contact: Russ Napolitano Chief Operating Officer Tenet Partners + 1 212 329-3035 rnapolitano@tenetpartners.com
New York, NY (September 30, 2015) – Tenet Partners, a leading brand innovation and marketing firm, joins Connolly iHealth Technologies in the celebration of its new brand: Cotiviti. Formed from the merger of Connolly and iHealth Technologies, Cotiviti plays a pivotal role in the healthcare and retail industries – delivering improved payment accuracy and financial results to clients using deep industry expertise, powerful analytics and innovation to unlock value.
Working in collaboration with the company’s executive team, Tenet was tasked to create a unified brand platform that would convey the breadth and depth of Cotiviti’s combined expertise, technology and analytics capabilities to help clients capture value across their payment activities. Providing prospective and retrospective claim reviews to 20 of the top 25 US healthcare payers, as well as audit and recovery solutions to nine of the top 10 US retailers, Cotiviti identifies and addresses incongruities in payment streams, adding up to billions of dollars in savings for their clients.
“Cotiviti sprang from the belief that, by combining the knowledge from two proven industry leaders, the organization could generate deeper insight – looking more broadly and deeply at all the information across the entire ecosystem of payments, agreements, policies and relationships,” said James Cerruti, Senior Partner at Tenet Partners. “Cotiviti represents a new chapter in the company’s history, with a steadfast focus on helping their clients uncover hidden sources of value in a data-driven world.”
The new name Tenet created, Cotiviti, underscores the company’s compelling combination of a collaborative client approach with creative problem solving that benefits clients in the two industries Cotiviti serves. Sophisticated and contemporary, the logo depicts the complexity and volume of data Cotiviti works with. The yellow pop of color amid the varied blue data stream is a symbol of Cotiviti’s ability to uncover hidden opportunities to deliver greater value.
To engage the organization in a thorough outside-in and inside-out strategy and creative process, Tenet brought in a multidisciplinary team of strategists, designers, content specialists and digital experts from the onset of the program. Together, and in collaboration with Cotiviti’s senior management team, they conducted client interviews, customer journey mapping and a competitor audit that informed the development of the brand positioning and related tagline – “Analytics. Insight. Value.”
As employees from different businesses were coming together under a single umbrella, it was imperative to help everyone understand the essence of the new brand and the shared vision for the future. To that end, Tenet designed and initiated a brand behavior training program that reached all Cotiviti employees in the US, Canada, the UK and India. Tenet also designed a comprehensive, multi-channel brand rollout strategy, extending to internal and external audiences. This approach resulted in a powerful and cohesive expression across all touchpoints: a new corporate website and user portals, a brand launch microsite, video and other marketing collateral to drive awareness and excitement around the September 28th brand launch.
“Tenet helped us crystallize the unique strengths that have always given Connolly and iHealth Technologies a competitive advantage,” said Michael Axt, Chief Marketing Officer of Cotiviti. “Now, under one unified corporate brand, we are excited for our clients to experience the power of our merged company and the value we can deliver when we bring our distinct strengths together.”
Cotiviti’s headquarters is located in Atlanta, GA with a broad footprint across the US. The company also has offices in Canada, the UK and India. Cotiviti’s retail business will operate as Connolly, a division of Cotiviti, while its healthcare business will operate as Cotiviti Healthcare.
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 visit us at tenetpartners.com and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
For more information, please contact: Russ Napolitano Chief Operating Officer Tenet Partners + 1 212 329-3035 rnapolitano@tenetpartners.com
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Company
BrandPower Rank
BrandPower Score
Retail Category
2015 Familiarity
2015 Favorability
Barnes & Noble
1
66.6
Specialty
0
0
Target
2
64.5
Big Box
+1
-1
Walmart
3
62.5
Big Box
+1
+1
Bed Bath & Beyond
4
62.4
Big Box
0
0
Amazon.com
5
59.0
E-Commerce
+1
+1
Old Navy
6
58.7
Apparel
0
0
Kohl’s
7
58.6
Big Box
+1
-1
IKEA
8
56.0
Big Box
+1
+1
Best Buy
9
54.7
Big Box
+1
+1
LensCrafters
10
52.9
Specialty
+1
0
Staples
11
52.1
Office Supply
+1
+1
Family Dollar Stores
12
52.0
Discounter
+1
+1
Macy’s
13
51.6
Apparel
+1
+1
Sam’s Club
14
50.2
Warehouse Club
+1
-1
Big Lots
15
46.7
Big Box
+1
+1
Office Depot
16
44.3
Office Supply
0
-1
OfficeMax
17
42.8
Office Supply
0
-1
Abercrombie Fitch
18
34.7
Apparel
+1
-1
Aéropostale
19
25.1
Apparel
-1
-1
Urban Outfitters
20
24.0
Apparel
+1
-1
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
August 05, 2015 – The banking crisis put a major damper on merger and acquisition activity. But cheap debt, plenty of cash in the corporate coffers and a rising stock market are all fueling a pickup in mergers. Some on Wall Street believe this will be the biggest year ever for M&A.
Does this mean you should be considering the acquisition of another company, or is it time to put your own firm on the block? Either way, if you move forward with a merger it will have a major impact your brand.
Brands are often the last thing CEOs consider when they merge their company. Unfortunately, many executives learn how important the brand is after they close the deal and start the process of putting the operations together.
Corporate mergers can often destroy corporate reputations that took years to build. When mergers fail to live up to expectations, everyone suffers — shareholders of course, but also employees, customers, vendors and everyone associated with the merged companies. That is a key reason why careful consideration should be given to the anticipated brand strategy before any merger is concluded.
Brand strategy from an M&A perspective:
*How will the merger impact your employees? * Mergers typically create confusion, conflict, fear, anger and uncertainty among employees. This leads to talent raiding, and often competitors are able to scoop up good people who are worried about their futures just when distracted executives need them the most.
*How will the companies be integrated? * The integrations process, or lack thereof, is often blamed for merger failures. A thoughtful vision, values and mission statement for the newly combined entity will go a long way to set the tone for the merger. This is something that can be done as part of the merger process rather than waiting for the ink to dry.
*What will the combined companies be called? * Harried executives often consider the name of the company as an afterthought, or with so much emotion that it evades logical thinking. The corporate brand is an important asset and naming should be put on the negotiation table early in the merger process. An outside brand-consulting firm with brand valuation capabilities can come up with alternative scenarios with the best naming recommendations and the potential value of each. My firm was consulted when SBC acquired AT&T. Management naturally wanted SBC to be the new corporate name, but we concluded it would take billions of media dollars to elevate the SBC brand to the size and stature of the AT&T brand. CEO Ed Whitacre wisely chose the AT&T name for the combined entity.
*Exploit the initial interest in the merger. * When you are ready to announce the merger, make sure you are ready to exploit the initial interest in the newly formed company. There will never be a better chance to tell your story than in the initial 30 days — after that the merger is old news. Have your senior spokespeople trained on the media. Have your ad campaign and communications materials ready for release. Talk to the press. Be ready to announce to your investors. Make the most of your announcement.
*Don’t forget both sides of the acquisition. * The time to set a budget for announcing and integrating the newly merged entities is before the deal is concluded. This aspect of brand building is cost effective for protecting existing brand equity and building the merged brand. Unfortunately, budgets are usually set after the deal is concluded. At that point all the pressure is on cutting costs. Damage to the brand can be catastrophic if it is not properly funded immediately following a merger.
*Merge the cultures. * You are not only merging the businesses but the cultures as well. Often this is the most difficult aspect of a merger. Communicate with consistency, communicate often and communicate like you mean it. Tell your employees what kind of culture you are tying to build and how you expect them to behave. Get your employees involved in thinking about the new company with well-crafted purposeful brand workshops designed to create internal buy-in. Keeping your employees well informed about the merger and what to expect will help rebuild trust.
*Communications is your best tool launching your merged brand. * Spend more time and resources than you think will be required to make the merger convincing. Utilize every communications vehicle to create excitement. It will take time but communicating your new brand will pay big dividends.
There are still plenty of global economic headwinds that could quickly chill M&A activity. If any of the global markets have a significant meltdown it will likely domino and quickly chill the heated M&A markets. But, if you are looking for a merger this could be the best opportunity in years to execute your plan.
July 28, 2015 – There are many wonderful examples of marketing successes. Below, we examine five of the most enduring brands to see what lessons we can learn and put to use in our own businesses.
Tiffany: The blue box. Perhaps no other box has created more excitement and delight than the iconic Tiffany blue box with the white ribbon. According to the Tiffany Co. website, Charles Lewis Tiffany mandated that the coveted boxes could only be acquired with a Tiffany purchase. As reported by the New York Sun in 1906, “Tiffany has one thing in stock that you cannot buy of him for as much money as you may offer, he will only give it to you. And that is one of his boxes.” The brand lesson is exclusive packaging tied to a powerful experience. Tiffany blue boxes epitomize Tiffany’s great heritage of elegance, exclusivity and flawless craftsmanship.
The Coca-Cola Co.: The contoured-shaped bottle. The bottle is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. This proves a point that not all enduring brands are about packaging an expensive experience. As my associate, Russ Napolitano, said in a recent blog on the subject, “What foresight the marketers and packaging engineers and designers had in creating such a bottle and to have it patented no less.”
Burberry: The classic check pattern. How does a coat lining become an enduring brand? This one is as interesting as it is puzzling. It is simply a fabric design — of a woven Scottish cashmere. When did it transcend from a coat lining to a design icon representing simple quality? First, it was distinctive and yet understated. As a trench coat lining it wasn’t highly visible, yet you always knew it was an original if you could get a glimpse of the lining. It has stayed consistent over time. Then, when it was applied to products such as scarves, umbrellas and purses it arrived as a standalone classic.
Cadillac: Reinventing luxury while reintroducing quality. The Cadillac brand has been under pressure for decades by the highly engineered German luxury imports. With so many luxury cars sold in the United States, why couldn’t America make a luxury car worthy of competing on the global stage? In recent years it has. The Cadillac brand has made a comeback starting around 2000. It began with a recommitment to design, quality and performance. Today’s Cadillac is well-engineered and fun to drive. It is comfortable without being the flying sofa of less spirited decades.
Harley-Davidson: A reinvented icon. The Harley-Davidson is more than a motorcycle, it’s part of a cultural experience. Left for dead as brand in the 1970s, the company was bought back from a holding company in 1981 by a group of diehard enthusiast investors who believed the brand could roar back to become one of America’s great companies again. The new management team reintroduced a retro design of earlier models while recommitting to high quality manufacturing. It worked, and customers returned.
Today, Harley-Davidson maintains a consistently well-managed brand from the sound of its engine, to the logo, to the culture. The company enjoys a huge brand following, which it nurtures carefully through clubs, events and even museums. This perpetuates licensing opportunities and significant revenue.
Were these brands originally developed to become enduring brands? Not always. Sometimes longevity itself is the reason they have become powerful: stick around long enough and you’ll have a following. The trick to harvesting the value of an enduring brand is careful management.
Managing brands for endurance – Do’s and Don’ts
DO – Provide a consistent customer experience over time
DON’T – Be all things to all people – focus on the customer experience
DO – Respect and protect the heritage of your brand
DON’T – Be afraid to refresh and reinvigorate brands that have lost momentum
DO – Conduct research consistently among your customers
DON’T – Over license your brand – it is a quick way to kill exclusivity
DO – Have a tactile component to your brand experience – from the Harley roar to the Coke bottle shape, most enduring brands combine visual with other senses
DON’T – Use endorsements without thinking through the consequences of failure
DO – Feel confident about charging slightly more for enduring brands
DON’T – Discount. It is one of the quickest ways to kill a premium brand.
A brand becomes a candidate for endurance when customers’ experience with the product transcends their expectations. Enduring brands provide not only a reliable experience, but also an aura of expectation beyond functionality. What is your favorite enduring brand? What are the qualities that make it stand the test of time?
July 28, 2015 – One of the great “got it” moments of my career is when I first heard the phrase “unique selling proposition” (USP). Rosser Reeves was a true Mad Men advertising icon, whose accomplishments were used to model the television character Don Draper. Reeves wrote a book in the early 1960s called “Reality in Advertising,” which is as relevant as ever. In the book, he identifies a reasonably easy way to differentiate your business and coined the phrase unique selling proposition to describe it.
Every company needs a USP to succeed. It is the one special thing about your company, service or product that sets you apart from all of your competitors. Your USP should be differentiating and shouldn’t be easy to duplicate by your competitors. Your USP should be promoted and advertised — ultimately becoming the cornerstone of your brand-building efforts.
How do you know that you have a unique selling proposition? Every company has one. It is a matter of uncovering it, discovering it or inventing it if you are truly a commodity without differentiation. It is the thing that customers really like about you. It is what keeps them coming back instead of going to your competitors.
Your unique selling proposition isn’t always obvious. It sometimes needs to be teased out of the myriad features and benefits associated with your product or business offerings. It generally goes beyond products and services to identify your special way of doing business — a closely held belief — a “tenet,” so to speak.
Another way of looking at your USP is that it is your entire sales pitch summarized in a single sentence or thought. It is the proverbial elevator speech, but faster, boiled down to something you would say to a sales prospect as the doors to the elevator are closing. What would you say? One sentence that would clinch the sale.
How do you create a USP that both sells your company and conveys your differentiating essence? There is no universal answer. It takes the serious work of thinking about your brand to identify an exceptional USP, but here are six steps I use to start the process:
Know your customer – First and foremost, it is important to know your customers and how they perceive your brand. Ask them what makes your brand unique? Ask them why they come back to you? Maybe you already have a USP, but it just needs to be communicated more clearly.
Know your environment – Take a fresh look at your competitive position in the marketplace. Who are your toughest competitors? How are they positioned and what brand space do they own? What is their unique selling proposition? How are you going to differentiate your brand from theirs?
Can you disrupt your industry? – Every industry has areas that need to be reinvented and revitalized. If you are not positioned to be the disrupter you will most assuredly become the disrupted at some point. Make sure your USP is on the leading edge and not trailing change in your industry.
Embrace the vision – If you have a vision of the future for the company and industry, take a fresh look at how that vision can be embodied in a USP.
Write them down – Revisit your USP candidates daily for a week – get feedback from trusted management members. Narrow the list. Have your top management team vote on them. Make a decision on the ONE that will have the greatest positive long-term impact on the company.
Codify the USP into a brand strategy – Once you have the USP you must then refine it into a brand message and incorporate it into the brand strategy making sure that it is communicated throughout the organization. These precious words will ultimately become your driving force for growth.
Remember, your USP should not be confused with a tagline. A tagline, when it really works well, is a beacon for the company that sends a message to all of the key constituencies of the company about the essence of the corporate brand, including all of the products and services under the corporate umbrella.
BMW’s “The Ultimate Driving Machine” is a classic and timeless tagline. The USP is that BMW is a car that has been engineered for YOU the driver. The tagline is more succinct and punchy. The tagline keeps the brand promise, but the USP is the deal closer.
Developing a USP is an old-fashioned marketing tradition that has withstood the test of time as one of the most effective exercises you can do to differentiate your company in the marketplace.
