Get intimate. And make sure it’s with the right person… of the appropriate age!
That might sound like a banner on a dating app. Or a company policy announcement gone wrong. But these are actually our main takeaways from the latest MLBM Lab’s Brand Intimacy Study for 2020 (running annually for the fourth time).
The first thing we gotta do here is to familiarize ourselves with the term “Intimate Brands.” Such brands are the ones that “cultivate meaningful emotional connections with customers,” as explained by Visual Capitalist.
If you want to know more about the method, you can get a real deep dive into the report here.
But we know you’re too busy. And while you’ll probably be getting to it over the weekend (more accurately, “a weekend”), we’re here to give you the gist, with some context.
And it starts with the first thing that caught us – the fact that, according to the research, the average “Intimate Brand” outperforms companies listed on prominent indexes like S&P 500 and Fortune 500 in revenue and profit.
In other words, imagine this new “Intimate Brands Index.” Then go and start mining the virtual coin with which you’ll invest in this index. (just keep us posted, yeah?)
Just how much better this made-up “IB index“ did? Virtual Capitalist’s infographic made it simple to see: While the average revenue growth between 2009 and 2018 was 5.2% for S&P 500 and 5.1% for Fortune 500 – it was 6.5% for brands considered to be “intimate.”
And even more impressive was the average profit growth – 37.7% for Intimate brands, compared to 7.0% and 16.4% of S&P 500 and Fortune 500 companies, accordingly.
To add our PostFunnel-y take, we think it might be important to mention that this exciting, imaginary “index” may be the result of some cherry-picking. But still.
Additionally, we have found the different generational/age/income/gender splits available on the study’s webpage to be especially fascinating.
Tying this back to the “getting intimate… with a person of the appropriate age” comment, we made at the top of this article – we wanted to highlight who different age-groups’ most loved brands are – to help you, as a marketer, understand a little better where you and your brand should perhaps be focusing.
So, we quickly created this table based on the study, to make it easier to catch patterns.
We’re sure different things pop up here for different readers, depending on personal and professional experience and affiliations. For us, we’d like to highlight how Microsoft is not only #11 for the 2nd age group and #7 for the 3rd; it also leads the youngest one – with Xbox. The result of masterful branding differentiation.
Now, when you finally get to look at the whole study on that future weekend when you have the time, be sure to cross it with the magnificently insightful information Morning Consult’s “most loved brands” data, found here.