Brand love is at the centre of a brand’s ability to grow with KPMG Forrester reporting that loved brands grow nearly three times faster than the industry average. This has a huge impact on future growth as loved brands can command premium pricing with 86% people spending more on a brand they love. They also receive three times more word of mouth recommendations through their loyal advocates. This is more than just another vanity metric - this is about changing organisational outcomes.

Being a loved brand benefits a brand’s future and our Love Brands report 2022, conducted with social media management platform Hootsuite, examines what's driving it.

The changing consumer

When brands consider the consumer landscape, it’s vital that they consider how much has changed. The last few years have seen a global pandemic, international conflict, climate crisis, supply chain disruptions, growing government distrust and now the cost of living crisis. In turn, media consumption habits; where your consumers hang out; the issues that matter to them; their daily routine; and far more besides has changed too. Amongst all this, new networks have developed, altering the way in which brands can engage with their customers.

Consulting firm McKinsey reports that 71% consumers are looking for personalised interactions and an emotional connection with the brands they purchase from. Nowadays consumers want a better version of what existed before - they want to purchase from brands that align with their values and help build a better world.

Key findings

• The most loved brands put sustainability front and centre. Every ranking brand focused on environmental, social, or economic sustainability and communicated about their environmental efforts and employee wellbeing programmes.
• Beauty and fashion brands came out on top. Globally these brands make almost a third (32.6%) of the top 50 loved brands while in the UK, 6 beauty and fashion brands feature in the top 10.
• In the UK Lego, L’Oréal and Olay are the most loved brands, while Asics, Illy and Colorbar Cosmetics ranked highest globally.
• Media, sports and entertainment brands created strong passion scores, but fell short when it came to trust.
• Retail and e-commerce brands outperformed on trust.

Methodology

Talkwalker and Hootsuite analysed 1,500 brands, 20 industries, 8 global markets and 2.6 billion conversations. The report was created using Talkwalker’s Consumer Intelligence Acceleration Platform, measuring sentiment and consumer engagement from comprehensive internal and external data, including social media and review sources. The report can be downloaded here

Written by Jack Richards, marketing manager (Northern Europe) at Talkwalker