At the beginning of this month, Interbrand released its annual ranking of the world’s best global brands. This year’s 2018 report marks the 19th year of the study. If you’d like to download a free copy of the report, you can do that here. But below is a snapshot of the first 24 brands:
Apple and Google are in top position for the 6th year in a row. And Amazon is on a hockey stick trajectory with its brand value jumping by 56%. More than half of the list is comprised of the following five sectors: Automotive (16), Technology (13), Financial Services (12), Luxury (9), and Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (9). Luxury is currently the fastest growing sector.
In their report, they outline five themes that have emerged and that are helping these brands outperform. They are:
Positive utility - not enough to just make people feel good through storytelling; you need to create real value and a positive impact in the world
Subscription mindset - there’s an increasing amount of brand value in subscription-based businesses (29% in 2018 compared to 18% in 2009); you need to offer your products and services with the least amount of friction as possible
Customer-centricity - bring the voice of your customer into every aspect of your business; be nimble enough to respond quickly
Learning from luxury - the top performing category in this year’s ranking; about exclusivity and authenticity
Role of brand - make your brand part of the decision-making process; build brand equity and trust
I’ll stop there and let you all dig into the rest of the report if you’re interested.
But one thing I found particularly interesting about the study is that they used – insert buzzwords here – “AI-powered social listening” to try and measure the emotion and sentiment floating around on the internet around specific brands. The goal was to pin down the perceived trustworthiness of specific brands.
Not surprisingly, they found a pretty strong correlation between customer trust and purchasing intent. Makes sense to me.
Today I got a copy of rain gravity heat cold. It’s a book by the Toronto-based architecture firm superkül and it’s meant to celebrate their first 10 years of practice.
The book itself was put together by Blok Design. Blok has also done a new – yet to be rolled out – identity for superkül. (Definitely worth a click through.)
One thing I wanted to highlight from the foreword of the book (written by Kiel Moe) is this line: “Great design does not respond to a static sense of context but rather perhaps transforms its flaws into assets and certainly amplifies the potential of site.”
We often talk about contextual architecture. That is, architecture which responds to and is sensitive to its surroundings. But here’s the idea that responding is, in fact, not enough. The ambition should be “amplification of site through design.”
I like that a lot.
If you’d like a copy of the book, it can be found on Amazon, at the University of Toronto bookstore, as well as, I’m sure, other places.
I very much enjoy the branding and marketing side of the development business. It’s probably an architect / designer thing. So I’m always looking out for interesting case studies.
Recently I came across The Flynn in Chelsea, New York. The developer is IGI and the agency is Winkreative.
What they did was create a namesake character named Flynn. Everything then became about a day in the life of.
The Instagram account is flynninthecity. They made colorful animations. And they even partnered with the Spring Street Social Society to host in-person performance art pieces. The Being Flynn series was a bunch of vignettes that combined “dance and physical comedy” and highlighted a cast of fictional characters who all, of course, reside at The Flynn.
As you all know, selling condos is typically about selling a lifestyle. A dream. In this case, they created a character to show you exactly what that dream should be.
Real estate marketing can sometimes often be cheesy. But I thought this was a clever and overall creative approach. Winkreative does great work.
What do you think of the approach?
Image: Winkreative