Guardian News & Media

Influential brands

Indexing the most influential brands in the UK, US and Australia...

Applying Metrics To Influence

It’s commonly accepted that, increasingly, brands have the potential to influence us, but there’s a lot to dig in to within that acceptance.

Guardian News & Media set us the fascinating task of identifying what makes a brand influential today and which of them pack the most influence in the UK, US and Australia.

Statistical Analysis

Thus we surveyed 6,000 people across the three markets, collecting data to gave us in the region of 15,000 brand rankings.

We used rigorous statistical analysis to uncover that influence is made up of four distinct pillars; also assessing how important each of these pillars is in terms of driving influence, and the attributes that brands need to have to score highly against them.

The Four Pillars

1. Commercial: the impact a brand has on consumers’ purchasing habits

2. Societal: the impact a brand has on society as a whole

3. Audience Inward: the impact of a brand’s communications on its audience

4. Audience Outward: the impact a brand’s audience has on other people

Striking Results

From the analysis, we were able to allocate each brand a composite influence score and compile an index at an overall country level and an individual brand category level.

The results, in brief, are that tech, charity and retail brands provide the most influence across all countries. Tech brands seamlessly integrate into consumers’ lives to shape behaviour; charities impact the world around us; while retail brands that can offer value hold sway over consumers.

Cutting The Data

Crowd DNA’s Socialise creative delivery team developed data cutting devices to help Guardian News & Media to share the work with partners and advertisers. These have also allowed for subsequent refreshes of the datasets.