Meaningful Brands Index Methodology

In the previous post on Apple and its rankings within Havas Media’s Meaningful Brands Index, there was also a question of the study’s methodology.  To that question, Sara de Dios Lopez, Global Director of Meaningful Brands, provided the following.  I’ve done some minor editing for clarity.  Also, any emphasis is mine.

Meaningful Brands (MB) explores to what extent people (+18 years ) perceive brands  are tangibly and positively  contributing to their quality of life  and to society at large.

Our framework and the MB index considers 3 key elements (split into 13 dimensions and 44 attributes) that collect:

1) Marketplace/product functional issues such as product quality, price, innovation, range, etc.

2) Personal well-being. Their perceived contribution to 7 dimensions (that according to sociologists, positive phsycology experts and wellbeing institutions explain our sense of personal wellbeing.) It measures to what extent people perceive it help us be better
– Physically:  Helping us stay healthier (i.e. Danone/Activia/Nestlé) fitter (Nike), look better (Zara, H&M,etc) ;
– Economically: Achieve savings/ getting good value for money  (Walmart, Ikea, H&M etc);
– Organizationally: Making our lives easier (Google, Microsoft,  other tech brands, retailers),
– Intellectually:  Inspiring us with new ideas (Ikea, tech brands) & developing our capabilities/skills (ex Microsoft);
– Emotionally: Empowering our needs of self-expression, helping us feel good, happier & more satisfied with our lives (i.e. Apple, Coca-Cola, Dove, Mercedes,tech brands & many others, etc ),
– Socially: Helping people connect & share with others (tech brands)
– Naturally: Enabling us to adopt more responsible/sustainable lifestyles (Toyota, Ikea, Unilever, Nestle,  H&M, etc)

The more outcomes the brand helps us achieve, the greater the role it has in our lives and the more attached we are.

3) Collective well-being. People want to connect with the company’s values and see what is behind the walls (whether it is ethical, transparent and taking a stand on social/environmental challenges, contributing to the economy and the communnities where it operates, how it treats its employees, its environmental responsible behaviour, etc)

How the company behaves matters and becomes an imperative in an increasingly transparent and hyperconnected world.  MB also measures the transformational role of the company in society at large.

Each brand is evaluated on all these dimensions to get its MB index. So, as you see, it considers many aspects of its contribution to our personal and collective well-being.

We measure how each brand performs on all these 44 attributes as well as their contribution to brand equity (the brand’s ability to translate these perceptions into better brand equity KPIs–consideration, purchasing intention, advocacy, etc).

Our study demonstrates statistically that brands with higher MB index scores get better brand equity KPIs, which results in  greater sales/market share in the medium term and much better financial results in the long  term (the top 25 over-performed the stock market by 120%).