‘Return on Meaning’:
Top Meaningful Brands Enjoy 46% Higher Share of Wallet Than Low Performers

Meaningful Brands® – Havas Media Group’s metric of brand strength – is the first global study to show how our quality of life and wellbeing connects with brands at both a human and business level. The study includes 1,000 brands, 300,000 people, 12 industries and 34 countries; and covers the role brands play in our communities and our personal wellbeing, as well as marketplace factors that relate to product performance such as quality and price.

By Caitlin Kauffman | Published 9 years ago | About a 5 minute read

Meaningful Brands® – Havas Media Group’s metric of brand strength – is the first global study to show how our quality of life and wellbeing connects with brands at both a human and business level. The study includes 1,000 brands, 300,000 people, 12 industries and 34 countries; and covers the role brands play in our communities and our personal wellbeing, as well as marketplace factors that relate to product performance such as quality and price.

Havas’ latest Meaningful Brands study, released today, reveals that a brand’s “Share of Wallet” – a marketing metric used to measure the percentage spent with a brand vs. the total annual expenditure within its category – is on average 46 percent higher for Meaningful Brands and can be up to as much as seven times larger.

Additionally, the performance of marketing key performance indicators (KPIs) set by top-scoring Meaningful Brands can grow at twice the rate of those set by lower-scoring Meaningful Brands. For example, for every 10 percent increase in meaningfulness, a brand can increase its purchase and repurchase intent by 6 percent and price premiums by 10.4 percent, statistically providing evidence that a brand's meaningfulness is a key driver of KPI success.

Meaningful Brands outperform the stock market by nearly sevenfold, with top scorers delivering an annual return of 11.76 percent – nearly seven times higher than the STOXX 1800 stock index. Not only do top scorers in Meaningful Brands 2015 outperform the stock market by 133 percent, the gap has widened since 2013.

Havas’ study demonstrates that brands contributing to our quality of life are rewarded with stronger business results that the Group is calling a “Return on Meaning” – the potential business benefits gained by a brand when it is seen to improve our wellbeing.

“Great marketing has a cumulative effect as it’s shared - it naturally flows and gains momentum. We will only share ideas if brands do stuff that matters to us. We now look to brands for meaningful connections - big or small. By understanding this, our Meaningful Brands project becomes central to how brands communicate in this new, organic world,” said Dominique Delport, Global Managing Director of Havas Media Group.

Meaningful Brands could be a unified tracking tool for CEOs and Marketing Directors. It measures the impact of increases in a brand's meaningfulness and how it affects each marketing KPI, the brand’s Share of Wallet and its performance on the stock market.

“This year, we’ve tackled one of the big issues for our industry: If meaningfulness is so crucial, how do you measure and create it in a way that CEOs can buy into and marketers can evaluate? Our 2015 project pulls in data that spans across stock market, share of wallet and marketing KPIs, enabling CEOs and CMOs to work together and crack the code to meaningfulness,” said Delport.

Among the study’s key findings:

Top global performers for 2015 include Samsung, Google, Nestlé, Bimbo, Sony, Microsoft, IKEA, HP and Philips, along with three Unilever brands – Dove, Knorr and Ariel.
The top-performing categories are Consumer Electronics, Healthcare, Food, Personal Care and Retail.
Technology brands account for nearly one-third of the top 50 global Meaningful Brands, with 3 out of top 5 brands from this sector.
Smaller brands often outperformed larger brands. For example, Honda vs. Toyota or Ford; PayPal vs. MasterCard; Uniqlo vs. Zara or H&M.
The percentage of brands people trust in North America is only 22 percent and 31 percent in Western Europe; trust is a pre-requisite for creating meaningfulness.
In developing Asian markets, people care about 60 percent of brands, an attachment 10 times higher than in the West. Not only is the relationship healthier in developing Asian markets, the Return on Meaning for brands is 30 percent higher.
In the West, more than 60 percent of people expect brands to play a role in their lives, but only one third perceive brands are delivering.
Incentives/rewards are meaningful for 68 percent of people, whereas relevant information to learn more and live customer support are meaningful for 61 percent. Besides rewards, providing people with educational experiences and solutions are meaningful for 57 percent and 53 percent of people worldwide.

“Brands that enhance the wellbeing of people, communities and societies are more meaningful,” said Maria Garrido, Havas’ Global Head of Data & Consumer Insights. “In the West, we have a more functional relationship with brands, so continuous innovation and product delivery is key. In high-growth markets, the relationship between people and brands is one that focuses more on personal benefits. In these regions people look to brands to help them achieve economic status, better experiences and every-day inspiration.

“By understanding what activity will resonate with certain global and local audiences, forward-thinking brands will not only be able to plan more meaningful campaigns, but will also be able to report on meaning as a powerful metric of success.”