Superbrands Vol. 21

About Superbrands UK Volume 21

Superbrands, now in its 21st volume in the UK, has been providing a snapshot of brand sentiment since 1995. It has seen brands face many new challenges along the way, from brands first having a presence online to the sustainability issues which Superbrands are now committed to addressing. However, in what has been the most turbulent of times, the Superbrands of the UK have shown community spirit, resilience and the determination to get through these extraordinary circumstances, while helping their customers do the same.

The Superbrands programme aims to shine a light on branding excellence, in both consumer and businessto-business fields, across a wide range of industries. Superbrand status is awarded for quality, reliability and distinction through a combination of branding experts’ and consumers’ opinions.

A selection of the identified brands are celebrated in the Superbrands annual publication which explores the history, development, achievements and strategies of these luminaries.

This supplement sits alongside the annual, providing a summary of these brands and exploring some of the ways in which they have stayed ahead.

Unusually for an industry award, brands do not pay or apply to be considered for Superbrand status, the reason being that in order to provide a broad review of the market and identify the strongest brands, all the key players in each sector need to be evaluated and voted on.

Superbrands is operated under licence in the UK by the Academy of Chief Marketers, whose purpose is to create a collaborative community of marketing and branding professionals. The aim is to help them tackle challenges and provide them the insights and inspiration to further benefit their brand and career.

Research andResults Overview 2020/21

Since 1995, Superbrands’ rankings have provided an overview of sentiment toward brands operating in the UK. Adopting its current methodology in 2006, the research process canvasses the views of UK consumers, business professionals and marketing experts.

This year, 3,233 brands were assessed; 1,610 business-tobusiness brands across 64 categories, and 1,623 direct to consumer brands across 78 categories. Brands never apply to be considered, each year all key players within each sector are evaluated to identify the most highly regarded. The business-to-business brands were assessed by an independent expert council of 20 senior business-to-business marketing leaders, alongside 2,500 UK business professionals, all with purchasing or managerial responsibility within their businesses. A nationally representative sample of 2,500 UK adults voted on the consumer brands. Additionally, 30 leading experts on the Consumer Superbrands Council also rated the brands, with any lowly appraised vetoed from attaining Superbrand status.

Combining two audiences’ perception ensures the experts’ view, typically factoring in considerations such as each brand’s purpose, positioning and distinctiveness, are combined with prospective buyers’ awareness and sentiment toward each brand, which is naturally vital. Both the business professionals, canvassed for Business Superbrands and UK public, canvassed for Consumer Superbrands, are accessed through TCBA’s fieldwork partner, Dynata, a global leader in digital research data. While all voters bear in mind the three criteria that must be inherent in a Superbrand when casting their votes, namely quality, reliability and distinction, individual’s perception will rightly and naturally be impacted by everything they have seen or heard about each brand.

Using Superbrands’ results to understand a brand’s equity and equity change requires reviewing the detailed sector data over time to uncover underlying deviations in performance. Brands typically have a ranking range within which they fluctuate over time, which is determined by fundamentals such as a brand’s comparative physical and mental availability. Shorter-term impacts, such as levels of exposure, tend to influence the brand’s position within its range in a given year. A significant variation to its mediumterm range, a decoupling of movement compared to sector patterns, or extended periods of overall and sector rank improvement or decline, signify underlying alterations.

Category leadership change can be a significant indicator of major shifts. Reassuringly for existing front-runners, only 19 of the 78 categories in Consumer Superbrands changed leader, with many of these simply being alternations between closely-matched established competitors; for example, Pedigree regained the helm of the ‘Pet Products’ category from Whiskas after a one-year gap, while Visa retook the leadership of the ‘Financial – General’ category from arch rival Mastercard. Other category leadership shifts however reflect deeper change, for instance Spotify taking over the top of the ‘Media – Radio & Music Streaming’ category from Capital FM. Spotify’s considerable and consistent improvements in the rankings over recent years, rising 261 places and gaining over 7% more voters compared to last year alone, contrasts considerably to more traditional peers. Similarly, Netflix replacing the BBC as the number one brand in the ‘Media – TV’ category is a comparable culmination of trends seen over recent years.

Naturally, individuals are keen to explore the overall winners. In that regard, the leading Superbrands are fairly consistent over time, as you might expect. Strong brands do not rise or fall overnight, however with so many brands involved in the process and the voting percentage gaps between each brand small, a tiny voting shift can impact overall rank. It is important therefore, not just to monitor the absolute rank but the detail behind it. For instance, while Rolex has achieved the number one position in Consumer Superbrands this year, a rise of four places from last year, its underlying performance is unsurprisingly consistent. Its rise is merely due to marginal shifts in both its voting percentages and those of the surrounding brands, rather than any substantive change in voting. Its medium-term range remains tight and consistent, while its performance compared to sector peers is stable.

Generally, steadiness remains common across the leaders, with only three of this year’s top 10 not featured in last year’s equivalent; two of those were in the wider top 20 last time and the third, Nike, was 22nd and is a regular in the elite group, appearing in the top 20 in four of the last eight years.

An additional data point to Superbrands, introduced a couple of years ago, is the relevancy index. This sub-index is based on whether consumers believe an individual brand has gained or lost relevance to people today, compared with in the past. This sub-index reduces the impact of longer-term goodwill on a brand’s scores and focuses consumers’ minds on current use. Comparing a brand’s performance in both indexes can reveal whether a brand is much loved but increasingly irrelevant, more relevant than in the past but not yet loved, or ideally well regarded and deemed to be highly relevant. As an obvious illustration, Marks & Spencer might fall into the former category remaining a relatively strong performer in the overall Superbrands rankings in 41st place, the leading ‘Department Stores & General Retailer’, but placing a very lowly 1,364th in the relevancy index. In contrast, Aldi is eighth in the

brand relevancy table but a mere 240th, or fifth in category behind Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Asda, in the core Superbrands ranking.

The Business Superbrands rankings show similar patterns to Consumer Superbrands. A fairly consistent top 20, with only five changes in the top 20 entrants, all of whom, bar Adobe, have been in the top 20 on at least one other occasion over recent years. There are even less changes in category leadership than Consumer Superbrands, with a mere 13 leadership changes. Naturally the research is primarily used to identify and reaffirm the leading brands in each category to award those brands Superbrand status. Beyond that, a deeper and longer-term look at the core index and associated relevancy index, can reveal much about a brand’s performance. Whether you are interested in just the overview of which brands are leading in the UK, be that overall or within category, or require a deep dive of the data to understand a given brand’s underlying performance, we hope you find the indexes useful and interesting.