Yellowwood, South Africa's leading marketing consultancy, has released the groundbreaking findings of the first ever Engager™ Project to be launched in South Africa. Engager™ is a pioneering new model through which marketers are able to gain a much greater understanding of what is driving consumers' engagement with brands and thereby provide quantified proof to substantiate the top brands' performance.
Launching the Engager™ Model in SA
Earlier this year, Yellowwood formalised its affiliation with Hall & Partners, a global boutique specialising in brand and communications with over 300 consultants operating in more than 50 countries. Through their partnership with Hall & Partners, Yellowwood has been able to introduce the unique Engager™tool to the South African market and the rest of the continent.
"As a leader in marketing strategy, Yellowwood strives to stay at the forefront of developments in the industry," says Kay Nash, CEO of Yellowwood. "Having recognised the need to refresh the way in which we think about brands and the way in which they behave in a new world context, we have been on a journey of seeking out new ways of approaching strategic brand planning. This journey led us to Engager™ - the ideal tool for contextualising what much of the new thinking and approach to brand strategy requires."
South Africa's Top 10 Most Engaging Brands for 2011
Engager™ has identified the top ten most engaging brands in the UK, USA, China, Australia* and now in South Africa.
So what makes these brands so engaging? Taking a closer look at the nine pillars which underpin the Engager™ score, Yellowwood has a few interesting observations to share.
1. South Africa's top brands all have a good combination of functional and emotional drivers underpinning their Engager™ scores
These brands share a common set of engagement drivers, demonstrating the importance of balancing functional and emotional aspects of the relationship the brands have with their consumers.
- A combination of high conviction, connection and commitment scores collectively suggests that there is a deep brand affinity driving loyalty and creating a strong overall preference for the brands, within consumers' consideration sets.
- Brand advocacy - the propensity to say positive things about the brand and eagerness to tell others about it - is a natural consequence of high levels of connection and conviction.
- Underpinning these emotive connections with the top brands, is a strong sense of really understanding the brands' offerings as well as what they intrinsically stand for, in terms of values, principles and beliefs. This kind of deep-seated brand knowledge and understanding provides a solid basis for engaging with brands, which goes beyond the fluffiness of traditional "feelings" based connections to ones with substance and relevance at the heart of them.
2. Local brands dominate the Top 10
Six out of the Top 10 brands are all proudly local - although some of these brands have gone beyond South Africa's borders, their provenance is inherently local. This is yet again a tribute to the strong entrepreneurial spirit that South Africa can and should be proud of - producing brands of world class stature locally; brands that are relevant to, and engaging with, South Africans.
3. The absence of digital brands in the SA Top 10
The UK, USA and China have three or more digital brands in their Top 10* - in Australia* and SA, there are none.
Some interesting observations from reviewing the drivers of engagement amongst the well-known digital brands included in the SA 2011 survey include:
- As to be expected, digital brands are particularly good at driving participation and also benefit from strong social sensing - that is, the powerful influence of others on one's own behaviour.
- Google is the highest ranking digital brand in SA and by far the most engaging amongst those included in the 2011 survey - achieving above-norm scores on seven out of the nine engagement pillars.
- In contrast to this, Facebook, with incredibly strong social drivers in participation and sensing, fails to holistically engage - falling well below the norm on all other measures. If people are drawn to Facebook purely because their friends are there, what does this mean for the future landscape of social media platforms? Will people be drawn to using platforms where they are engaged with the brand and not only the functionality that it offers? Perhaps Google+ will be the first of many to chip away at the clay feet of the Facebook giant?
4. Is Coca-Cola one of the few truly universally engaging brands?
In the USA, China and Australia Coca-Cola is ranked within the Top 10 most engaging brands surveyed* - and in South Africa, not only is it in the Top 10, but it has achieved a significantly higher Engager™ score than in any other market. It is recognised as the Coolest Brand by youth in the Generation Next survey, an Icon Brand by TGI standards and a Favourite Brand by The Sunday Times Top Brands survey. No matter which ranking or rating system you look at, Coca-Cola is somewhere close to the top of the charts, if not No. 1.
So what does Coca-Cola get right?
Consistently strong performance across all engagement pillars. It is the epitome of a well-rounded brand, engaging with the market at a rational, emotional and social level. In South Africa, this is particularly evident in the way in which it has endeavoured to be relevant and not just "another American brand".
- Coke's ubiquitous presence and relevance throughout the country has ensured its main international competitor, Pepsi, has really struggled to gain market share.
- Coke is adept at tapping into local passions - in South Africa's case, linking it to soccer has been particularly successful in driving brand engagement.
- And bringing this local flavour relevance alive in the form of Happiness Taverns - to bring the joy of the 2010 FIFA World Cup into "the hearts of the nation".
A Global Model with Local Relevance
Engager™ has been tested with over 300 brands in the UK, US, China, Australia and now South Africa - covering 15+ categories and more than 10,000 people. The model has been extensively validated using sophisticated analytics, which have proven a strong link between engagement, sales and profitability. Engager™ is also significantly related to stock market expectations (linking data from the 2009 Forbes Top 2000 company database) and clearly connects strong brand engagement with above average business performance.
Over the past six months, Yellowwood has been testing, adapting and contextualising the Engager™ suite of research tools to the local market conditions. This included adapting the methodology to suit a pen and paper survey format (in addition to the global methodologies of online, CATI and CAPI which are already available); scale calibration and adjustments to accommodate local market nuances; and developing local market norms across multiple categories - enabling global comparisons and benchmarking.
In line with the global approach to establishing in-country benchmarks, Yellowwood selected 100 well-known brands across 20 categories. For the benchmark survey, each respondent was asked to provide answers to a minimum of five randomly assigned brands. These brands were drawn from different categories, to ensure a wide reach within the survey.
"The trade-off in achieving wide reach was the loss in category depth, as we were only able to cover off a small number of brands within each category," explains Nash. "However, this will be added to over time as we build on the South African brand database."
Among the 100 brands selected were 20 global brands that were used for normative calculations. This gives Yellowwood the ability to understand how brands have established different kinds of relationships with consumers in the other key previously markets explored (USA, UK, China and Australia) and what this means for global brand management.
"Furthermore, we are also able to understand how local brands have performed, relative to the nine key Engager™ pillars and the relative strengths and weaknesses in local brand and marketing approaches," says Nash.
Engager™: Transforming How We Think About Brand Engagement
As a result of the constant flow of new technology, new thinking and new ideas, the world of brands and communications has changed dramatically. Brands need to have more meaningful and engaging conversations with the people they wish to talk to.
"Essentially, it's no longer about a monologue where big advertising talks to people and tries to get them to do things," explains Vanella Jackson, Global CEO of Hall & Partners. "It's about seeking a more intimate relationship with customers and using more integrated communications to get them engaged. It's about a dialogue, no longer a monologue."
"In line with this new thinking, the Engager™ model provides the context for understanding and measuring what drives brand engagement," explains Nash. "The Engager™ approach has several unique benefits that can provide local marketers with valuable insights and strategies."
Looking to the Future: The Evolution of Engager™
"As part of the Hall & Partners global team, we are also involved in the ongoing evolution of the model," adds Nash. "In a rapidly changing world, we cannot assume that a model developed today will still be relevant tomorrow. We need to continuously invest in ensuring that the approach and metrics incorporated in it are relevant and truly capture the dynamic relationship between consumer and brand."
In addition to the power of the research tools, the relevance of Engager™ stretches well beyond the survey realm. It is a strategic framework for thinking about and planning brands for the future. With a strong emphasis on implementation through targeted brand and marketing strategy, Engager™ can help marketers answer many important questions. For example, where to focus their marketing efforts to achieve the maximum impact with consumers at a functional, emotional and social level; what kind of conversations are needed to build and support engaging brand relationships; and how to equip consumers to positively influence others.
For accuracy and insight, one needs look no further than Engager™.
* refers to the 2010 Engager surveys in USA, UK, Australia and China
* Summary of the Methodology
In line with global benchmark survey requirements, Yellowwood needed a representative sample of respondents for the survey. The agency thus limited the reach to the metropolitan population within the country's top eight cities: Johannesburg, Pretoria, Pietermaritzburg, Durban, Bloemfontein, East London, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. A representative sample was generated using a face-to-face, pen and paper survey, and all interviews were conducted in homes. A total of 1,400 respondents participated in the survey - yielding more than 7,000 brand responses.
The data was modelled by the global analytics team at Hall & Partners, ensuring that statistical analysis was done to deliver a comprehensive set of results - including a total "Engagement" score plus indices for each of the nine Engager™ pillars, per brand.
"In future studies, the modelling will be done locally after a process of skills transfer has been completed," says Nash. "This will ensure that future projects are 100% locally managed, avoiding the time and cost typically associated with global models - although we will always have access to global expertise and insights on any project, as needed."
