••• brand research
It’s Google’s world
List of most influential brands includes many from tech but few surprises
Apple is innovative. Walmart has presence. Facebook is engaging. But if you want to know what the most influential brand in the U.S. is, turn to Google. No, not to ask the question! It’s Google itself that is the most influential brand in the U.S. – and the world – according to data from New York research company Ipsos MarketQuest.
The seemingly all-encompassing Internet entity topped the list in a study that asked Americans to rate 100 leading brands on a variety of attributes. The 10 most influential brands in the U.S. for 2013 are (in order): Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Visa, Walmart, Yahoo!, Procter & Gamble and eBay.
Clearly, technology, media and Web-based brands dominate the list, demonstrating the increasing influence these sectors have in the daily lives of Americans. The list further highlights the growing convergence of these sectors, as companies such as Microsoft, Google and Apple continue to blur the lines between media and technology, while eBay and Amazon have taken retail to the Web.
While these are the top indicators and top brands in the U.S., Ipsos also studied and measured global brand influence in eight other markets: Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, the U.K., France, Germany and China. Including the U.S., these nine markets represent more than half of the world’s total economic output. And once again, Google took top honors, followed by Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Visa, Coca-Cola, Samsung, YouTube, MasterCard and Procter & Gamble.
www.ipsos-na.com
••• consumer research
Buy and move on
Consumers not engaging with brands online post-purchase
Marketers continue to grapple with how to optimize the role of online and social media in their media mix. It’s no secret that consumers use both online and social media as they consider purchases within a number of product categories but a study from Radius Global Market Research, New York, indicates that online engagement with brands drops off after a purchase has been made.
In general, consumers are less likely to engage online about brands after making a purchase. Purchasers across all categories are most likely to utilize online sources before making a purchase vs. sharing information about their experience with the product after purchase. However, two categories are an exception to this rule. Purchasers of personal care and makeup products are more likely to gather or share information after purchasing than they are while making a purchase. And smartphone purchasers are almost as likely to utilize an online source after a purchase as they are during a purchase.
Consumers tend to turn to online resources most often for big-ticket and emotional purchases, such as travel (76 percent used during last purchase); electronics (73 percent); automobiles (67 percent); baby-care equipment (66 percent); and household appliances (64 percent). Social networking is most often used around baby-care equipment (39 percent); electronics (35 percent); automobiles (28 percent); toys and games (23 percent); and household appliances (23 percent). Online sources and social media are less often used around several CPG and personal care categories, including makeup/personal care, home care products, OTC pharmaceuticals, beverages and packaged foods.
Social media may be used less often than traditional channels for informing purchase decisions but its influence is still meaningful. While consumers remain much more likely to obtain or share information via more traditional online channels (which are typically used 50 percent of the time or more, depending on product or service category) than they are via social media when considering a new purchase, social media still has an influence over anywhere from 9 percent to 39 percent of purchases.
www.radius-global.com
••• airline research
Functional, accessible, emotional
Southwest and Alaska take top honors in airline customer experience
Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines earned the top spots in the airline sector of the 2013 Temkin Experience Ratings from Waban, Mass., research company Temkin Group, which evaluates three areas of customer experience: functional (can customers do what they want to do), accessible (how easy it is to work with the company) and emotional (how consumers feel about their interactions). At the other end of the spectrum, US Airways was the lowest-rated company across all 246 companies in all industries surveyed. American Airlines, which recently merged with US Airways, had the second-lowest rating in the industry.
The 2013 Temkin Experience Ratings included nine airlines: AirTran Airways, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Airlines, JetBlue Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways.
The average industry rating remained steady at 60 percent, compared to 61 percent in 2012 and 60 percent in 2011. The highest-ranked airlines were Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines, both with a rating of 68 percent, which is eight points above the industry average. Alaska Airlines increased five points from 2012 while Southwest Airlines dropped five points. The next airlines in the ratings were AirTran Airways (65 percent), JetBlue (64 percent) and Delta Airlines (63 percent). Delta Airlines improved five points from the 2012 ratings, tying for the largest gain in the industry.
JetBlue had an unusually emotional profile, as its emotional rating was almost eight points above the industry average but its functional and accessible ratings were less than three points above average. Southwest Airlines led in functional and accessible components and Alaska Airlines led in the emotional rating.
US Airways earned a rating of 45 percent – nine points behind the next-lowest-scoring American Airlines. US Airways had the largest drop since 2012 (7 percent) and earned the lowest score for all three subcomponents.
www.temkinratings.com
••• consumer psychology
Perception ≠ reality
What buying American means to consumers today
At a time when many of the companies thought of as being American as apple pie actually outsource a growing portion of their production abroad, “buying American” has never been a more confusing proposition. Is a product manufactured overseas by a U.S. company more American than an Asian product manufactured in the U.S.? What about the parts being used to produce these competing products? Which companies benefit most from presenting themselves as American-made? Rochester, N.Y., research company Harris Interactive set out to address what factors contribute to the perception of a product as American.
When asked directly – and without any prompting as to brand names, place of manufacture or other factors – to name the company they perceive as most American, U.S. adults went first to the auto industry, with two of Detroit’s big three topping the list. Ford (15 percent) was the top mention, followed by General Motors/GM (5 percent) and GM-owned Chevrolet (4 percent). Other well-known companies to make the list included McDonald’s (4 percent), Coca-Cola (4 percent) and Walmart (3 percent).
“What many consumers don’t know is that companies very traditionally seen as American, from GE to John Deere to Levi Strauss, outsource varying portions of their operations overseas so it takes a lot of attention and research to determine if you’re buying American and what that specifically means to you,” says Mike de Vere, president of the Harris Poll. “Even the big three automakers – Ford, General Motors and Chrysler – two of whom were thought of as the most American brands in our findings, increasingly have cars in which parts are produced abroad, while Japanese automakers Toyota and Honda have upped U.S. production.”
Being manufactured in the U.S. is clearly the top factor in being considered an American product, with 75 percent of Americans agreeing that a product needs to be manufactured within the U.S. to be considered American. This puts domestic manufacture ahead of the importance of being from a U.S. company, being made from American parts or being American-designed.
Roughly half agree that a product needs to be made by a U.S. company to be considered American and that a product needs to be made from parts produced in the U.S. to be considered American. Only one-fourth agree that a product needs to be designed by an American to be considered American.
The majority feel that it is either very important or important to buy American for the product types tested, with the strongest feelings expressed for major appliances (75 percent), furniture (74 percent), clothing (72 percent), small appliances (71 percent) and automobiles (70 percent).
Perceived importance of buying American products increases with age across all categories, as 18-to-35-year-olds place the least importance on the practice while those ages 48+ place the most. Additionally, women are more likely than men to indicate that it is either very important or important to buy American in most categories.
Drilling down into the “very important” ratings uncovered more diverse results. The clear frontrunner for this measure is keeping jobs in America, with two-thirds of U.S. adults rating it very important. Fifty-six percent also assign top importance levels to supporting American companies, while half do so for safety concerns with products assembled/produced outside of the U.S. On the other end of the spectrum, “decreasing environmental impact since products don’t need to travel as far” received the lowest “very important” rating (32 percent).
www.harrisinteractive.com
••• teens
Online inquisition
Teens go online more to satisfy curiosity than shop or play games
With the myriad activities at teens’ fingertips when they go online, some might be surprised to learn that the top reason why teens go online is to seek information, according to a study of 12-to-17-year-olds from the U.S., Poland, Germany and the U.K., conducted by Research Now, Plano, Texas, and K&A Brand Research, Nuremberg, Germany.
Ninety-two percent of respondents go online to look up things they don’t know and the second most-popular activity is finding out about events and what’s happening (83 percent). Nearly three-quarters of teens use the Internet to research public transport and window shop (researching and browsing for items). Teenagers in Poland use the Internet to search for and purchase products more frequently than their international counterparts. Overall, only 35 percent of teens say they actually purchase items online. After window shopping, the most popular activity is playing games (73 percent).
Teenagers in all four markets enjoy unlimited and unsupervised access to the Internet. Respondents reported that they can go online as long and as often as they wish; they do not need to ask for parental permission; and only in Germany are teenagers required to share Internet access with siblings. Over 60 percent go online every day and 46 percent go online several times a day. Age does not make a big difference when comparing the amount of time teens spend on the Net.
There is no sudden explosion in Internet use at the age of 16. Instead, it’s more of a gradual increase in the amount of time spent online as children age. Of those who go online several times a day, 11 percent are 12 years old and 21 percent are 17 years old. Teenagers in the U.K. and Poland use the Internet 20 percent more often than teens in Germany and the U.S.
Roughly one-third from each country go on the Internet most often via a PC or laptop. The additional two-thirds reported accessing the Internet through a tablet, smartphone, video game console, television or other device. Over one-quarter of British teens go online via smartphone, while fewer American (11 percent), German (9 percent) and Polish (2 percent) teens use smartphones to get online.
www.researchnow.com
••• employment research
Of profiles and job postings
How are social networks used for job-searching?
LinkedIn is the most popular site for posting jobs, with 77 percent of openings shared there, according to a report from Boston recruiting services company Bullhorn Inc. Twitter came in second with 54 percent, followed by Facebook – a distant third with just 25 percent.
Twenty-one percent of jobs are posted to all three social networks but the same percent are not posted to social media sites at all. Over half of U.S. jobs are posted to two or more social networks at a time and only 24 percent are posted to just one network.
The Northeast region is the most active in social recruiting and the Midwest is the least active. In addition, the Northeast uses LinkedIn and Twitter most heavily, while Facebook usage is heaviest in the West, including Alaska and Hawaii.
While there is a wide variation of social recruiting activity across industries, the top 10 industries embracing the movement are restaurant, advertising/PR, non-profit, fashion, health care, food service/catering, technology, education, accounting and communications.
www.bullhorn.com