Connection + Progress
What makes a brand Go-to
For each of us, a few brands have real meaning.
Brands we love for how they relate to us. Brands that help us do what we previously couldn’t. They’re not institutions that push their way into our world, but agents that we decide to pull in.
We call them Go-to Brands. They drive growth and resilience by creating meaning in customers’ lives.
And meaning comes from two sources — connection and progress.
Connection
Go-to Brands establish a personal connection with customers. The most compelling brands tell a story that taps into a customer’s sense of identity, connecting them to something bigger. This is more than just preference or relevance, but an emotional bond that powers lifetime value.
As humans, we’re tribal at our core. Forming bonds helps us tell the world who we are and who we want to be. Connection always matters, but it’s especially important as we look for ways to identify and belong.
How can you start connecting?
There are two keys drivers that do it—and both strongly correlate with how much customers say they love a brand.
- Be true to me
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Know who I (as a target customer) really am. Share my values and reflect the real ways I live or work and my aspirations.
Best in class example
Chewy: With 24/7 customer service and products for all your pet needs, Chewy is the one-stop-shop that cares as much about your furry friends as you do.
- Show you care
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Focus instinctively on creating value for me rather than extracting value from me, always having my interests at heart.
Best in class example
PBS Kids: Parents and teachers can trust PBS Kids to provide family-friendly content that kids learn from and enjoy.
Progress
Go-to Brands enable customers to achieve progress. The best brands don’t create connection in a vacuum. It’s built on top of strong product and service fundamentals that solve real customer needs and are constantly advancing from a performance perspective. This is because authenticity is critical, and a brand needs to live up to its emotional promise in the experience it delivers.
People find meaning when they make progress in what they’re working to achieve, whether it’s solving a larger societal problem or the day to day issues of daily life or business.
How can you ensure customers feel progress?
There are two key drivers of progress—and both correlate with how much customers say a brand helps them do things they couldn’t do before.
- Work like magic
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Reset my expectations (as a target customer) for how things should work and put me effortlessly in control. “Work like magic” is about the experience of using the brand but goes a step further by combining purpose and pleasure. It’s about designing elegant solutions to achieve the most effective outcome with the minimum effort.
Best in class example
Southwest: Clean, uncomplicated, reliable flight service means that travelers can rely on Southwest to get from Point A to Point B without a headache.
- Advance my world
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Solve the big problems I care about and also the little ones I haven’t yet noticed, and connect me meaningfully to others who have the same quest.
Best in class example
Peloton: Peloton’s bike provides access to a boutique fitness class, including top-notch instruction and equipment, without the hassle of getting to the gym.
Identifying a Go-to Brand
Using connection and progress ratings as dimensions, brands can be classified in one of four quadrants. Explore each by selecting a quadrant below.
Connection
Comfort
Go-to
Transactional
Enabling
Progress
Select a quadrant to learn more
Comfort brands
Comfort brands connect, but don’t help us progress. They gain our affection but are exposed to disruption. We value them and feel attached to them, but they don’t help us do things we otherwise couldn’t.
Go-to Brands
Go-to Brands outperform on both dimensions — not just for small groups of people but for big parts of the market. In their case, connection and progress reinforce each other, making the business resilient.
Transactional brands
Transactional brands underperform the market on both connection and progress. We use them, but we are not thrilled about using them — at least, that is true for us collectively.
Enabling brands
Enabling brands help us progress, but don’t connect with us. They set new expectations and meet new needs yet fail to earn our loyalty. We appreciate that they help us do new things, but we don’t love them.
Where do you stand?
The brands winning this high-stakes game are the ones that create meaning for their customers. It sets a foundation for the deeper relationships that people commit to with these brands. That meaning comes from two sources: the kind that drives personal value (connection) and the kind that drives action (progress).
Connection without progress risks disruption, and progress without connection risks defection. Combining both is what sets Go-to Brands apart, in business resilience and in revenue growth. Go-to Brands in the U.S. grow their revenue by an average of 11%, more than five times the revenue growth for brands with low connection and progress ratings.
Where does your company fall? If you’re not a Go-to Brand, how do you become one? And if you are, how do you maintain your status?
Resources
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