Christina Bowles: Hello, everybody, and welcome to the 4th and final episode of the modern marketers toolkit webinar series. Today we'll be sharing results from our 2024 research of hundreds of brands, and we'll plan to highlight meaningful shifts across categories and share lessons for what it takes to become a go-to brand in 2025 but before I pass it over to David and Chris a couple of things to note. If you have questions during the session, please drop them directly in the Q&A function of the zoom and we'll answer them at the end during our Q&A portion. And then there will also be 3 polls today. So please keep an eye out for those prompts as well.

 

And without further ado, I'm going to pass it over to David Mayer, a senior partner in the brand strategy practice, who will take it from here.

 

David Mayer: Great thanks, Christina, and thanks everyone for joining us. I've been with Lippincott for coming up on 25 years and creative brand aperture, which is where the data is coming from today and looking forward to sharing with you.

 

Chris Ciompi: And Hi, everyone! I'm Chris Chompi. I'm excited to join you here today. I saw on the registration list that some folks have returned from other webinars that we've done this year on some of this similar topic so great to see you guys again. And if this is your 1st time with us here at Lippincott's webinar. Welcome I'm also a senior partner in our marketing and customer strategy practice, and excited to share some 2024 data for you with implications on 2025 before we get into it. We did want to just take a step back in case any of you don't know Lippincott.

 

So we have been around for about 80 years, a little more than 80 years. We're a global creative consultancy, and we've worked on some very large brands over the course of our history. You see a small section of them here on the page in terms of being global, we operate across the world in 8 different countries, and we are part of Oliver Wyman which operates across 70 countries.

 

We work across a lot of capabilities, as you can see here. Part of what we do is combine creativity with rigor, and I think what I've seen in my time here, which is only about a year and a half, is truly one of the differentiators that we are looking for. Not just the best answer from an internal perspective, but also from an external perspective, and thinking about not just what consumers and customers say, but also what they do, as it relates to Brand, and as it relates to business goals.

 

So with that, I'm just going to do a quick recap here. We're at the 4th of our series of 4 here in 2024 we are cooking up what 2025 will look like. And you guys will get messages about that soon. But without further ado, I'm gonna put it back to you, Dave, and we get into it.

 

David: Great thanks, Chris, so giving you the answer ahead of time, it's the economy stupid, which is, you'll see, as we go through different components of understanding brands.

 

Ultimately, what's really defined this year, and I think we saw that in the election as well, is, people are feeling stretched on their personal finances. And that has implications for how they interact and what they're looking for from brands. You asked the question of why a banana? Well for anyone of you that works in retail, you'll know that banana has a particular high profile, as being something that consumers are very sensitive around knowing the price of, and therefore all grocers will make sure that they stay competitive on the banana. Apart from being also the iconic feature in the Doll Men's Club. For any of you who join that social network.

 

So before we get into the date, we go to the next page, we're gonna do our 1st poll. And so given what we understand around the economy, you should see a pop up. How do you think it's gonna impact your marketing budget in 2025.

 

Chris: A lot of change going on, especially in the last few months for us, Dave. Right, I mean. Do you think even the change that we saw in November would change people's answers here.

 

David: Well, it'll be. It'll be interesting, because the all the academic research says in a year where budgets are tight and most people may be cutting back. That's now the time to get excess share of voice and over invest. But there's a big challenge from taking theory and applying in practice. When you have conversations with your CFO, as you and I have found.

 

Chris: Yes, for sure. Any kind of uncertainty tends to tighten those purse strings. Okay, Bridget, Christina, let's close to the poll and see what we've got interesting. So flat or down normal distribution we're seeing we're seeing. Yeah, what do you think, Dave?

 

David: I think that's overall positive. I think you're seeing. And it would be fascinating to be able to unpack this by industry of whether there are particular industries which are feeling more buoyant than others, but overall, I think, a positive sign for marketing, which is, it looks like the majority are seeing flat or up.

 

Chris: Yep. Looks. Good. Okay.

 

David: Okay, let's keep going. So here's why you're you're all here. We use brand aperture which has really been built out. The philosophy of jobs to be done, and if if you haven't read the book Competing Against Luck by Clay Christensen and one of our own partners, Taddy Hall, I would thoroughly recommend it as a really useful foundational bit of insight around. How do we build? Meaning with with brands? So we now have over 800 brands, 120,000 consumer responses across 9 countries. And where we're going to focus today is what we saw in the data in the Us.

 

So we measure a whole host of different dimensions of understanding people's relationships with brands. But there are 4 metrics which really stand out as giving us a great diagnostic. The 1st is connection, are you loved? Second is progress, you helping people do things they have always couldn't value is a combination of that benefit of connection and progress, but the cost you pay for it. And then last, but not least, momentum of people excited by what you've got coming next. So now, if we we dive in and 1st take a look at connection as we look year on year, and I love this Maya Angelou quote, which is ultimately brands about. How do I make you feel the brands are doing really well at this what we call comfort brands. They may no longer be the best for you, but we have an emotional attachment to them. We love them, and what we've seen here is there's been a little bit of rise overall, but really not much over time.

 

Then if we shift to progress again, we don't see a lot of change overall year on year. But this question of brands can never stand still, and the brands that are strong on progress, or what we call enabling brands. You may not necessarily love them for what they do, but they're offering you something. It's challenging to get elsewhere. And that's something that never stands still. And so the need to continually reinvent continuously improve and open up new markets.

 

And then, if we look at the 2 together, we have this essence of what we call being, go to. So the strongest brands, which only about 30% of brands earn this. And if you look at the chart, the gray dots are every brand we measured in 2024, only about 30% of brands being go to, and that is, they have high connection.

 

So the majority love their brand that they're buying from and they also deliver progress, and that's the one that creates an enduring bond. And what we've also found. When you then go to the next page, we look at this relative to financial performance go to brands relative to those that are only transactional.

 

There's a up to 5x difference in revenue growth and that should intuitively feel right, which is the ultimate role of a brand, is to influence our behavior, to choose them, more often to gain greater share of wallet, to raise retention, and that has a bottom line impact, and is why we all invest and why we love building brands.

 

Chris: And Dave quick question within the data itself. Are we talking to prospects? Are we talking to customers? Who are? Who are we talking to.

 

David: That's a great question, Chris. So the data we're gonna show today is all with customers. Hmm. The people who are buying from you. We also look at prospects. And that's part of the unpacking and understanding you a brand that's really strong. Your story and or you strong experience, preferably, you want to be able to do both.

 

Chris: Great. Thank you.

 

David: So often we get the question which says, Well, look, I'm in an industry, but it's really tough to be meaningful banking, insurance cable and our answer is to say, yes, that we do see some category shifts, and in certain categories it can be harder. But there are always individual brands that are out there that defy those category norms. And so the ambition should always be to say, Don't feel constrained or anchored by the sandbox that your industry sets as an average and so to bring that to life. Go-to the next page.

 

Here's a go to Brand, and it's been consistently a go to brand over the past 5 years, which is T-Mobile. And not only are they Go-to Brand, but if you look at the last decade that has translated into a growth in share that's doubled from 15% to 30% of the market. So it's driven a real business benefit. And then the question comes as well, what is T-Mobile doing? First off, they addressed the paradigm that was in the market, which said, You can either be expensive and very high quality. Or you can be cheap. But you're gonna take some compromises. And T-Mobile said, no, that doesn't have to be the case. We're going to give you the highest quality network for an affordable price, and then they substantiated it with, for instance, being the 1st national rollout of 5G. 1st with certain technologies they brought in.

 

They also had clarity on who their brand target was, which was, rather than trying to be all things for people designing the proposition for a slightly younger audience while still marketing to a broader range

 

David: with that brand target. That also meant they had this ability to bring a tone of voice and a personality which was very anti institutional and helped set apart from those remaining in the category. Take that together, and that's why you see T-mobile consistently as a go to Brand, and when we look at other cable and Telco, they all exist within those gray dots down in within the pink circle, and some of them are enabling. So they are introducing new technologies. But they're not doing it in a way that's loved.

 

And so we're starting to see disruption of this industry. Lessons in geographic footprint, which, if you're one of the companies that are down within enabling or transactional. You get concerned when you've got to go to Brand, who has an ability to draw more than the functional offer would suggest on its own. And that's why we're seeing some disruption going on in that industry for for those that now need to make brand work harder as a business asset.

 

Chris: And Dave again. This is T-mobile customers right?

 

David: Correct.

 

Chris: And so is this. How is this different from something like CSAT or NPS?

 

David: It's a great question. So nature of relationships around brands are tough and net promoter, which is seen as the loyalty metric and is very powerful for its simplicity. Actually, what we see is net promoter is good at helping you go from bad to good.

 

It's very tough to help, you know what to do to go from good to great. The correlation between net promoter and loyalty falls down once you get above about a net promoter score of about a 20. And so what we found is scoring well on connection and progress not only gives you insight around bad to good, but also gives you insight on good to great. And that's why a company like T-mobile stands out here in a way it doesn't necessarily always stand head and shoulders when looking at something like CSAT or net promoter. Iso.

 

Chris: Got it. Alright! How about we? Look at one more here. Who else do we have? Let's see.

 

David: So, Airbnb, and I know Chris, you're passionate about this brand, so I'll introduce it, and then I'll I'll hand it off to you. So Airbnb is interesting in the T-mobile has always been go to. When we 1st started measuring Airbnb they were enabling. So they opened up a new market, and we're getting credit for it. But people had a lot of anxiety, which was when I arrive. Am I going to be able to get in when I get in is the reality going to match what was sold to me on this, on the site. And in contrast, when you looked at traditional hospitality companies. Many of them were loved, but ultimately it's seen as a room with a bed and maybe room service and fairly interchangeable. So I love you. But if you're not there, I'm fine choosing something else. So there was a bit of a race going on which was, Can Airbnb emotionalize this experience faster than hospitality can start introducing some progress in terms of functional enhancement or about building relationships with others. And I think what this data shows is Airbnb has achieved this in a way that traditional hospitality hasn't.

 

Chris: Yeah, I mean, as you said for me, this is the brand that drives home this framework. Because of my own personal life. So I have twin 7-year-old boys who are kind of like tornado 1 and tornado 2.

 

And I love to travel. But it was gonna be really hard for me to figure out how to travel with them in traditional hotels adjoining rooms. It's just not gonna work. They're gonna have their own door to the hallway, and I know what that means. You know I'm gonna find them in the hallway for sure, and in terms of like a jailbreak, and Airbnb really allowed my husband and me to travel with them in the ways that we wanted to go to places that we couldn't go. Otherwise that would have been hotel based. And so for me, this one came through function actually. But I came to love it more and feel so much more connected to it because of the delivery of the experience and what it facilitated for me and my family. It's just.

 

David: Chris, you bring up really interesting point here, which is, while progress is very anchored in functional superiority. Can I set a new standard? Can? Does it work better? Is it easier? Is it cheaper? It's also anchored in social progress.

 

Chris: Hmm.

 

David: Which is, how are you? As a brand helping me build stronger relationships. And so the point is, Airbnb allows me to have experiences with my children which is much more difficult to do in traditional hospitality, and that is something which I think helped drive the original strong progress that they were offering something that materially didn't exist before.

 

What I think they've cracked is saying a lot of the emotional uplift when it all works was attributed to the hosts. And now, Airbnb, through the way that they're engaging with people addressing anxiety, but also getting the benefit of when you love the place you're going to credit Airbnb, not just the host for being on Airbnb.

 

Chris: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, Airbnb is facilitating all of the things, not just the reservation process, but the talking to the host, it actually becomes much more masked in a way, who the host is versus Airbnb is the one that you're exactly right, that I'm crediting with the success of traveling with my family. Absolutely, okay. I think we've got a poll coming up. So let's look at that.

 

So what's the likelihood. That your customers say the following about your brand right? And we're looking for a rating from one to 5 here, where one is not likely, and 5 is extremely likely. So on that 1st one I love this brand and the second one. This brand helps me do things. Other brands can't. What kind of spread do you think we might get here, Dave?

 

David: It's an interesting one. I think my hunch is we may see more in the love category, because you tend not to. There's very few brands which deliver such a strong experience. Strong experience in terms of I can't get it elsewhere. But I'll use you if I don't love you whereas on the progress dimension outside of technology. It's quite hard to consistently do that. So my, I I well, we prove we'll see we've proven wrong, but my hunch is we'll see a higher score on on love.

 

Chris: I like it. All right, Bridget, let's close it. And let's see where we are. Okay. So I love this brand.

 

Yeah, interesting. No one's on the helps me do things I can't. We didn't get any ones. What do you see in the data for? I love this brand, Dave.

 

David: So we're so one. The good news is that most of our viewers feel their customers rate them pretty well.

 

Chris: Hmm.

 

David: So there's a lot of lot of go to brands out there. So congratulations. I think we are seeing if people feel a little bit less confident around the progress dimension. So that doesn't surprise me, and this is the goal which is innovations, really hard, blank piece of paper, and just do better. And this is the role of brand can play because brand is, how do I meet? Customer needs in a distinctive way, and therefore provide some focus so that you're not just doing individual innovations. You're doing innovations that move in a common direction that reinforce what is it our brand stands for, and that reinforces back up to the brand equity.

 

Chris: Interesting, I mean for me, anyone who answered 3 on either question. I would challenge you to think about it one more time, and if you were forced to go above the bar or below the bar with 3 really being the bar. Where do you really think your brand is in terms of your customers, where your customers really seeing it? Are they seeing it as a 4 or as a 2?

 

David: And we just so, Chris, we just in the Q&A. We had someone ask about Vrbo. How do they stack up versus Airbnb? It's a great question, and unfortunately, we don't have the data for Vrbo, but it's a great one. Potentially. When we do our refresh this year we should look at.

 

Chris: Yeah, that's a great addition. Okay, let's keep going.

 

David: So now, turning to value, and we know that the economy is top of mind from this quote from bankrate, and we see that. Actually, there's been a slight lift, although again, this is a fairly small nudge. So one of the things I sort of take out is, as you see, across all of these metrics at a market average, there's not a lot of movement. It's more the individual brands within any metric we're seeing shifts. So now let's dig in and have a look.

 

So 1st is, let's just be clear on what we mean when we when we talk about value. And it's really an understanding of how much bang you get for your buck. And when we look at that, the bang we define as the average of connection and progress effectively. What am I getting? And then buck is a relative cost of this brand cost more than similar brands? We're not defining what the category is because categories are blurred these days. We're leaving it to the individual respondent.

 

Chris: Can we just be clear on this for just a second? Right? Like just the equation? So we were in a 2 by 2 before. So how does the 2x2 turn into connection plus progress? Do you know what I mean?

 

David: So what we're gonna look at now is a ratio.

 

Chris: Hmm.

 

David: So take the average of those percentages. Say, I'm 50% on connection, 50% on progress. Then my bang is going to be the average of those 2 50. And then I'm going to divide that. By what proportion think my brand cost more than similar brands. So if it was only 2% of people thought I cost more than similar brands. That would be 50, divided by 2 value ratio of 25.

 

The average in the market at the moment is a value ratio of around 4. And so we can put everything in context of that. Thanks, Chris, for the clarification.

 

Chris: Of course.

 

David: So let's have a look at Airlines. Southwest has been getting quite a lot of publicity. But from a brand perspective, what we see is it's doing tremendously well. So declined a tiny little bit, but still materially higher in terms of the values its customers perceive it offers relative to customers of other airlines. And this isn't about being cheap. What we see a low cost airline is has a value ratio of 3 and a mainline airline. So mainline airline. Think of someone like an American or a United or a Delta also has a 3. They get there by different routes.

 

But for the low cost airline, I see you as being cheap, but I don't see you as offering much benefit for that. So value ratio is below the average for the market of about 4 for the mainline airline. I see you as offering a lot of benefits, but you're doing it at a price that I perceive to be quite expensive. So again, the value ratio is poor in contrast.

 

Southwest is affordable, and it's got some signature. Experiences like bags fly free transparency, the ability to shift your flight for free, and that gives it a benefit. So from a brand perspective, that brand is working really hard business asset, even while they've got some broader business design issues now grocery. Hence the banana at the beginning is probably the most interesting category. What we saw. Average of 2019 to 2023. We saw everyone having a high of an average value ratio. With a little bit of a spread.

 

But this year we've seen a real teaser part of the deep discounters. So Aldi and Lidl, narrow assortment, all their own product, high quality, very aggressive. Price point drives a very high value ratio

 

We've seen, whether it be a big box or an or a supermarket. We've seen their value ratios decline. And the impact of this because this is a frequent purchase of people are very sensitive.

 

It's likely that we will see what's happened in Europe happen in the US. Where Aldi and Little took disproportionate share. And I've seen a lot of growth, and the traditional incumbents have come under pressure. And so there's a big question now about if you're not Aldi or little what you need to do to respond because they've got a business model that enables them to do this cost benefit trade off in a way that your traditional model hasn't.

 

And then last one, for this section is looking investments, and this is an interesting category, because the price you pay is often hidden within the returns. And so it's not totally transparent.

 

And here what we see is Charles Schwab. We're gonna call out has done a really nice job of effectively saying, I can. We, even in a more cost constraint market. I can deliver benefits that you value without you perceiving me to be more expensive to deliver those benefits, and hence my value. Ratio rises, which suggests that they will be getting greater growth this year. And so what does that mean for you? And there's a sort of 2 step question that we have, which is one, thinking about your own industry, Are you in a stable or a transforming context? And what do I mean by that? In transforming? That means you probably got higher price sensitivity due to either purchase, frequency, high price, commoditization of the products. And therefore people are likely to consider switching.

 

Or are you in a stable industry? Take something like airlines where maybe there's a lower competitive intensity in airlines. A lot of it's due to frequent flyer programs on what slots you got at airports. Is that high brand differentiation that allows you to be resistant to pricing or like investments? Do you have hidden pricing? Once you establish which half of you're in. We then go to the second question and what's then the primary source of your own value ratio? So let's start with transforming.

 

Are you benefit led, so that your a high value ratio is primarily of what are you delivering to your customers relative to the cost that they pay? And there it's really understanding of. Are there any gaps in perceived value? And how do we amplify the components of the offer that are most valued, and pull back elsewhere. Conversely, if your cost led like Aldi is, it's stay lean, messaging to the benefit of affordability, not cheap but be prepared to pivot towards benefits. Once we come out of this period of stress, we turn to stable again, we'll look at a benefit led versus cost led. And it's similar here which is given. It's stable. You have more opportunity to invest in meaningful experiences that customers value need to stay competitive on price. But you don't need to be the lowest.

 

Conversely, for someone like a Southwest, stay lean.

 

Message on affordability, and think about selective opportunities. And this is really where the active investor is pushing them on to say, what else can we do to maintain our value ratio, but attract new customers in.

 

Okay on to the last, but not least: momentum. Easy to lose and almost impossible to fake. We've seen, probably again, only a small shift tick up, and maybe this matches we were people getting slightly more on the marketing budget, and momentum is highly influenced by what are you doing in the storytelling? And if we go to the next page, we'll talk about how we calculate this. Very simple. We ask. Customers are the brands best days ahead and we have a proportion to say Yes, minus the proportion, and say, No, you do have the ability to say I don't know, or neither, and they're excluded.

 

And so we're now going to come to another poll. And here's what we want you to do, which is for each of these 3 pairs. Which brand did their customers say the best days are ahead?

 

Chris: Maybe while we're giving people some time to do this one, another question did come in, Dave, when we were talking about the value ratio. So it was asking to share the formula again, for how we get to the value ratio.

 

David: Great, so value ratio is the relation of bang to the buck.

 

Chris: Hmm.

 

David: Is the average of your connection and progress scores and buck is the proportion of people that say this cost more than similar brands. And then it's the ratio of the bang divided by the buck, and that gets you to the average, for the market is a 4. And as you saw someone like a Southwest is up around a 17. Someone like a mainline airline is down at a 3 quite dramatic in terms of some of these gaps, and that that can drive. If both are available, you can see where the majority of people will shift.

 

Chris: Perfect. Okay, Bridget, let's close this one up and see what we got.

 

David: Right? So I guess on that 1st one people believe that Apple's best days are ahead by quite significant margin.

 

We also see Amazon versus Google and then pretty even Spotify versus Youtube. So let's let's have a look and see how well we did. So, median score 44% across all brands. Samsung, 67& & Apple 50%. This surprised us. It's it looks like it surprised you and the audience, we did this research.

 

Between May and June of this year Samsung launched its Galaxy AI marketing in January. Apple launched Apple Intelligence. Towards the end of June both companies spend between 2 to 3% of their budget on marketing. Apple ends up spending slightly more because it's a larger company. Samsung sends a slightly large percentage, but lower in absolute terms. So our belief is that people are excited about what AI can do and are hungry for more. And I think a takeaway here is to think about. If relevant.

 

What is the way you can talk about AI and the benefit it can deliver, and it needs to be benefit. It can't just be technology for technology's sake. So now let's move on to the next ones. We thought it was, gonna be Amazon. It is, it is Amazon, I think, is more ubiquitous in people's lives and has a range of things that it continues to sort of roll out and majority of people engage in it. And now, obviously again, there are no losers here. These are all strong scores, but Amazon is our scoring.

 

Chris: Also feels like on this one. Dave, Google is just in a true moment of potential disruption, right? The Chat GPT story that's going on with Google. And of course, the legal issues that Google continues to have in the press about potential monopoly, etc.. It's a tougher time to be a Googler.

 

David: Well, we're gonna see what happens next year. Because, I would say at this point their customers are saying, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm excited by what's to come. I'm still 11 percentage points ahead. But yes, it's certainly a risk. And then, lastly, where we weren't sure

 

Spotify, and Youtube, both scoring pretty well and pretty close. So I think, we all got it wrong on Apple and Samsung. But I think on the other other 2 pairs we were. We were pretty accurate as a collective group and so those were just pairs we picked out. Also want to talk about who scored most highly. And here are the top 5. So, Chris, you pointed out, AI is something truly transformative, and people are excited by we're seeing that with Open AI.

 

We've talked about Samsung and Aldi, so I won't spend much time on them, Teladoc. Not the most glamorous of businesses. This is the ability to have a conversation with your physician over the phone, or by Zoom as opposed to going into a surgery. Offering something that's clearly getting people pretty excited. Given the context of sort of a post-COVID world. And then Liquid Death, which I know has been in the press a lot, a phenomenal job at generating earned media. And it's got excitement. It's built on this insight which said. I want to participate in the crowd, but I don't want to drink alcohol, and I don't want to be picked on for not drinking alcohol and liquid death enables me to engage in that way

 

What's interesting is when we unpack and look at some of the other metrics. They actually underperform on quite a lot of the metrics. The 2 that they score well, are are control.

 

It allows me to engage on my terms, not my friends terms, but also my friends love this. It's a social brand. So there's a bit of a question for liquid. Death has done a phenomenal job in creating a market but it's doing and solving a particular job. And so the question for them is, how can I transition that now into being meaningful in a broader context.

 

Chris: That'll be a really interesting one to see in next year's data to see if they've been able to sustain on on Openai here, you know, there's been some news recently about getting their 1st Cmo, right? So they've been able to do this as a brand without someone sitting in that chair. What do you think this means for 2025 for them?

 

David:  Oh, I think it's all about. How do I translate this momentum into being meaningful? So we did other work unpacking, and people are still fairly skeptical in their ability to derive value out of using. So we've we've created a fan fantastic story. We know there's a lot of investment going in. But in the day to day it's not yet driving meaning. And so what we'll see is, people are bought into the story. Now. Openai has got the job, and you saw that with the launch of Sora last week for people to use is, how do I take it out of being a toy to being something. That is why I choose one brand over another. And, by the way, I'm not willing to pay more for it. So this is all about how do I take? If you go back to that value ratio, how do I raise the benefit without raising the cost?

 

Chris: Right? Okay, great. Let's look at the bottom 5.

 

David: So we were gonna spare some blushes. We not revealing the brands that are down there. But I think on some level, not surprising, cables going through disruption. We already talked about this in relation to T-mobile. So people aren't excited at the moment by what's going on there over satellite. We've got a healthcare provider that promised a whole lot of personalized care and looks like it's under delivering. A restaurant, cost of living harder for people to go out. And then social media the poorest scoring. And what we found is all social media companies that we measure are transactional and people are there because they feel they have to, because that's where the conversation is. So it's a phenomenal strategic control in the business design.

 

But in terms of brand meaning. They score poorly, which means that very vulnerable to disruption if someone else can create a more engaging conversation. And there, for instance, looking at someone like a blue sky.

 

Chris: On the restaurant piece. Another one that's been in the news so much lately is Red Lobster with, you know, a new CEO, and figuring out how to turn that around. I mean, what do you think is happening there.

 

David: Well, the challenge for restaurants are a bit like hospitality, which is, there's a range of it's just transactional. It's just you're there. I'm just going to buy you because you need some fuel to being truly loved like a chick-fil-a. But almost no restaurants are able to deliver progress. And so we've seen a lot of innovation, and where the value creation is going on is actually more to do with people like Uber eats or the supermarkets creating new ways to serve that dining occasion. And so if you look at someone like, Red Lobster, you can't rely on physical convenience as being the primary reason why you come, nor the fact you're offering a distinctive food. It's what around the experience can I do to really elevate beyond food and physical convenience, and that's the bit which the restaurant category as a whole is yet to crack.

 

Chris: Got it. Great. Okay? So maybe we go to a quick sum up and then we'll get into some Q&A. Some really good questions have been coming in. So I guess we start with. I don't know. You just can't connect right? There has to be something about progress that's going on is what we're saying, Dave. And you know for me, as I said, that really comes to life in terms of Airbnb and the progress that it helps me make, and I think I found more connection to them through having great experiences that they were able to offer. So you can't only connect and then in terms of value ratio which we got into, and I see there are already a few more questions about, so we'll get into a little bit more.

 

There's something about defining value for your audience, right? That that we can kind of say, yes, this is the median in the market and high and low. But it's really important to remember that your audience should put you in a certain spot, probably for value ratio. So balancing that focus between bang and buck it. It needs to depend on the characteristics of your industry and how you are positioned relative to your competitors and then, in terms of momentum. Maybe it's just you just can't let it be still right. You can't let it stagnate. It's wonderful to be consistent and to be stable. But you, you must have stability that is not stagnant. So obviously, if you're hearing that your customers believe that your best days are behind you, any sign, any significant portion of your customers are saying that that's something to act on and investigate.

 

So let's get into these questions. It looks like the 1st one actually is about my favorite brand, Airbnb. But, Dave, it's more about that explanation that you were giving about the halo effect. So the question is about being curious about the dynamic between a corporate brand and franchises. So can you clarify again how Airbnb has been able to get the positive halo effect from the host experience, even if that host is not the Id is not ideal.

 

David: So great question. And I'm going to say the date can only take us so far. So I'm going to relate to observations. We've made that explain the data, but I can't prove it. So one is 2 sides to this. 1st one is Airbnb had to work hard to remove the anxiety.

 

And that's anxiety of I'm taking a step into the unknown and unlike hospitality you know what you're getting when you step into, for example, a Marriott hotel. I don't know what I'm stepping into when I'm stepping into someone's home. And so Airbnb has done a lot to try and improve reality versus sales. Pitch through what you see, and then helping you feel confident that when you arrive you will have a trouble, free time finding and entering the home.

 

So that's removing the negative. They're moving from bad to good to go from good to great. They've done an excellent job in terms of the communication Airbnb has with you leading up to during and post your stay and there's a if you go to Lippincott's website, there's a sense perspective called the happiness halo that one of our colleagues, Dan Clay, wrote. And that's the behavioral psychology about how do I build anticipation? And how do I create the sort of nostalgia after the event, because the memory of the experience is actually more important than the experience itself. And you can influence that. And Airbnb's done a great job.

 

Chris: Excellent great. So another question that starts with an observation about Teladoc. So it's Teladoc has high momentum and traditional healthcare is in the bottom. And then the question is, is there a correlation there? What do you think, Dave?

 

David: So while there's 1 healthcare provider in the bottom 5 and Teladoc in the high, I actually think what you see is a spread over healthcare. What's interesting? There's a lot of challenges in healthcare, given recent events and perceptions, but actually, on the whole, people tend to find their own healthcare, whether it's insurer or provider meaningful. There's a lot of insurers and hospitals that are actually go to brands while believing that the industry isn't a force for good. And this is very similar to what we saw in banking during the financial collapse. And so the job, if you're in a brand builder within healthcare is to recognize that consumers can hold 2 contrary thoughts. 

 

I may really find you meaningful, but I don't find the industry, and therefore, in the immediate term. There is less you need to do from a business perspective yourself. But what can you do as a part of a jigsaw piece in a complicated and negatively perceived industry. So keep on innovating to take out some of the friction that's inherent in the way that we've designed our healthcare today.

 

Chris: Great. Listen, I think we've got time for about one or 2 more questions, Dave. I see that a few more coming in. So this one is about getting feedback from the customers. It's just how. How do you? How do we get this feedback from the customers?

 

David: So we always want to get feedback: for brand aperture. We use primary research to get an overall view as to in around. How do we stand? Then, I would thoroughly recommend qualitative follow up to add context and richness. We use jobs to be done, which is a form of in-depth interview. To really unpack the what are the emotional, functional, and social basis to brand meaning and use that to inform? Where do we want to have the greatest impact to continue building our brand.

 

Chris: Got it. So there is really something about marrying what people say with how they feel.

 

David: Yeah, absolutely. And linking it back to business performance because our experience has been and measurement came out, as is anchored in many customers around brand tracking sort of advertising measurements. And you, you measure attributes like, are we innovative? Are we caring and the challenges? Well, if my score goes up a couple of percentage points. What does that mean?

 

Does it drive business value? And what are the leaves I have to pull? And so I would encourage people to build a model that allows you to use brand as a business asset. Understand which of the interactions that you have with your customers that have greatest impact to drive the perceptions that matter most to drive the behavioral outcomes that you want to achieve. Whether that's I want to acquire more customers. I want to gain greater share of wallet. I want to reduce churn, and in that sense A, you'll understand where you stand. And B. You'll know if I invest certain amount of dollars sometimes inside the company as much as driving demand.

 

What's the ROI that I'll get, and that enables you to have a stronger conversation with your C-Suite colleagues.

 

Chris: Great. I think we've got time for one more. Is there any one thing in the data this year? That was a big surprise to you?

 

David: Probably at a market level. How little changed!

 

Chris: Hmm.

 

David: So we've seen lots of individual brands based on the context around them and things they've chosen to do. For instance, Open AI coming in this year  but actually as a market. The averages have stayed remarkably stable.

 

Chris: Interesting, I think, for me,  I'll go back to something we talked a little bit about in October, which had to do with AI and trust. That consumers had for brands to be using AI responsibly to be using it well. And when we looked at the split by age group. We would have expected that younger folks would have more trust just because of technological savviness and familiarity with AI and using AI more. And that just wasn't true. There was, in fact, low trust across all ages, no matter what age group you are, a part of it was never more than 30% of the age group was trusting brands to use AI well. So something definitely for the brands to work on in 2025.

 

David: Great Point, Chris.

 

Chris: And listen with that, I think we're gonna close it up. So guys, thank you so much for joining today. If we didn't get to your question. We will follow up with you absolutely. Recording, a recording will be available of this webinar and we will follow up with an email. Thank you for attending today. And the recording link will be there. So be on the lookout for that and be on the lookout for invites to our 2025 webinar series coming soon. Thanks everyone so much for your time today.

 

David: Goodbye.

 

Chris: Bye, bye.