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Section 02 | The Global Top 100
The BrandZ Verve Index
Social Media Special Report:
The BrandZ Verve Index
Linking positive social media with brand power
A new tool for productive social media investment
Ali Rana
SVP and Head Scientist, Emerging
Media Lab, Millward Brown Digital
Ali.Rana@millwardbrown.com
With contributions from Anne
Czernek, Senior Research Analyst,
Armineh Nourbakhsh, Software
Developer, Maarten Peschier, Senior
Technology Scientist, Emerging
Media Lab, Millard Brown Digital
PART ONE:
OVERVIEW OF BRANDZ VERVE
As part of our ongoing efforts to
enhance and improve the BrandZ
rankings report, we have included a
new data source – our proprietary
Verve Score methodology, which
measures social media data. Using this
Verve score, Millward Brown Digital
has evaluated the social vitality of the
BrandZ Top 100 brands.
The core data is taken from the tens of
millions of global Twitter conversations
about these brands. In essence, the Verve
score is a measure of the number of
mentions for a brand combined with the
favorability of those mentions. So, the
higher the score, the more that brand has
been elevated within a social context.
Verve represents the accumulation of
positive brand experiences among the
engaged audience on Twitter. It covers
brand users, peers and influencers, those
exposed to brand communications,
and those responding to news or blog
sites. Verve classifies Twitter data both
topically and attitudinally and reflects
outcomes over time in brand equity,
sales, and TV impact.
Overall, Verve is best understood in
the context of Brand Contribution. It
is a signal of consumer interest and
engagement, and is most closely aligned
with brand strength and power, where
it allows us to see the texture and detail
of the consumer relationship to a brand,
such as how celebrities can impact
lifestyle brands, or where activism can
shape perceptions of commodities.
Before going into more detail, it is
important to highlight a few caveats:
— Scores vary by category. Certain
brands may be very strong relative to
their competitors, but that category
may not be much talked-about. Brand
strength and marketing can help dial
this up (such as American Express and
Visa), but ultimately many people are
less interested in tweeting about their
financial services than they are about,
say, fast food or fast fashion.
People really do tweet
about their lunches.
People like to talk about
what they’re interested
in or what’s in front of
them, whether that’s food
–“Casually ate a ten piece
of KFC in ten minutes” –
or fashion – “Shopping!!
Literally cleaning out
Zara…”
— Verve reflects social audiences. Verve
is an accurate reflection of what is
happening in social media, but activists
may over-amplify certain topics, while
people having positive but ordinary
experiences with a brand may not feel
compelled to speak up at all. This is
why we place social data in the larger
context of the BrandZ rankings.
Because we work from a common
understanding of brand equity across
both brand contribution and social media
conversations, we can define a statistical
relationship between the two. In a social
context, anyone talking about a brand by
definition has it at the forefront of their
mind; therefore brands that are
meaningful and different are most likely
to be entwined in brand conversations
on social media.
PART TWO:
BRAND HEALTH IN SOCIAL MEDIA
Meaningful Experiences
When gathering brand equity data,
Millward Brown can require someone to
answer a series of questions related to
meaning and difference. However, in
social, we can only infer from what is
stated – no follow-up questions allowed.
Meaning is the easiest to ascertain from
straightforward statements about the
consumer’s favorability toward the brand
or whether it meets needs.
Brand meaning is brought to the
forefront in social media conversations.
Its expression is most elevated among
brands whose baseline consumer
commentary is experience-driven. Within
the BrandZ Top 100, Starbucks, Red
Bull, Nike and eBay are all such brands:
accessible, crave-able and consistent,
they can provide a satisfaction so sweet
it must be shared spontaneously.
Brand Difference
When we look at the brands with the
highest Verve scores among the BrandZ
Top 100, we also see that third party
commentary can have a significant
impact. For example, technology,
automotive and luxury all feature heavily
because consumer experience is
supplemented by coverage from thirdparty
sources (news articles, blogs, etc.).
Notably, these categories are also
higher-consideration and more
aspirational, characterized by more
complex features, longer purchase cycles
and lower purchase frequency.
Third-party coverage can often be a key
influence for overall opinions, but these
are frequently driven by the fact that
the brand has demonstrated a point
of difference.
“Door to door
deliveries of the future?
Amazon testing drones
for deliveries”
The Impact of Marketing on Social
Media Conversation
It is important to note that marketing
causes variations over and above the
base level of social conversations, rather
than forming it. Almost universally
among the 2014 BrandZ Top 100
brands, consumer experience or thirdparty
communications, amplified by
brand strength, provides the foundation
for social vitality.
Three types of marketing tend to break
through most strongly: (1) sponsorships
of sports fields and event spaces, like
Citi Field; (2) buzzworthy TV
commercials, such as Budweiser’s
Clydesdale Super Bowl spot; and (3)
catchy social campaigns connecting
branding to experience, like KFC’s fun
#iatethebones campaign.
PART THREE:
CATEGORY COMMENTARY
Technology
Within technology, social platforms are
the clear leaders of brand performance in
social. Unsurprisingly, their users
frequently reference their activity and
communities on the platforms – these
brands are heavily experience-driven.
That said, each platform has a distinctive
pattern of its own: Twitter users tend
to be addressing other Twitter users or
commenting on trends they see on the
platform; LinkedIn commentators are
often sharing content they have seen on
LinkedIn; and people talking about
Facebook use Twitter as a backchannel
to gossip about other people on
Facebook. Our Verve data indicate that
while consumers do follow coverage of
these platforms at a corporate level, they
are primarily interested in the content
and communities housed in social media.
Technology brands are also divided by
those that have strong consumer-facing
brands and businesses versus those that
do not: Google, Apple, and Samsung all
generate a lot of attention, far
overshadowing brands like Cisco or
Siemens. The successful brands are
characterized by a large proportion of
third-party communications, primarily
driven by new product launches and to
a lesser extent, corporate observations
(including investments and litigation).
However, for some brands with a variety
of popular consumer products,
consumer experience plays a role
as well: people register their use of
Google’s large portfolio of products
around the globe (including maps,
translation, voice services, and more).
Brands such as Apple and Samsung
also attract commentary on their
desirable mainstream products,
as well as their more experimental
efforts like wearables.
Financial Services
Financial services are primarily driven by
third-party communications – consumerfacing
experiential commentary is
minimal. However, silence does not
necessarily mean indifference and
comments can hinder as well as help.
Distinct from the rest of the category,
credit card brands American Express
and Visa both had success with
consumer campaigns that reiterated
the “rewarding” promise of the cards.
In particular, American Express led the
way here, with #AmexSync and
#PassionProject. These campaigns
succeeded because they had not only
a clear consumer incentive but also
demonstrated the brand’s forwardlooking
approach to changing media
and technology habits. These brands
also have some of the highest brand
contribution scores in their category,
suggesting that their performance
in social media and their overall
brand strength may have a
symbiotic relationship.
Retail & Apparel
These categories are highly
experientially driven, as the spur for
most conversation is an in-store
experience or a coveted item. Because
many people who talk about these
brands have first-hand knowledge, this
familiarity can augment the brands’
profile with other items of interest:
mentioning The Home Depot in a joke
about Miley Cyrus gives it extra comic
zing; or one might feel closer to
Beyoncé through her H&M
endorsements. However, first-hand
familiarity can turn into a negative
when the news is bad, for example
when social media picked up the horse
meat contamination story, seriously
compromising otherwise buoyant brand
images amongst consumers.
Oil & Gas
From a social media perspective, oil and
gas companies are an example of where
brands have to work extra hard to make
social into a beneficial influence on their
brands. Consumer interest in “pumping
gas” tends to be relatively low, whilst
criticism can be swift when there are
environmental concerns. Nevertheless,
because energy is a potentially emotive
topic, it can be used to enhance brands
in this sector where there is a positive
story to be told.
46 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2014 47