BrandZ's Top 100 celebrates brands with a respect for and response to the empowered consumer
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Thanks to technology, the way people shop is changing – quickly. Behind this transformation is a more powerful consumer, able to shop where and when they want, possessing more perfect information on price and pedigree and who, for the first time, has real alternatives to shopping outside ‘shops’.
More channels spell more opportunity, but when traditional brand owners are accustomed to controlling a linear path to purchase that is no more, brands find themselves at a crossroads in this ‘splintered’ customer journey – and those that stall get left behind. This year’s BrandZ Top 100 report is testament to this, with real evidence showing brands with a respect for and a response to the new needs of this empowered consumer faring better than others in these difficult times.
In our work with a number of the companies you’ll read about in the following pages, we’re engaging clients in reimagining their role in retail. While no longer simply places of transaction, retail stores remain relevant as the most immediate connection between brand and buyer.
But the new customer journey requires us to turn the plethora of shopping methods, the choices available and the value offered by brands into a seamless experience; one where customers shift comfortably and easily between in-store, online and out-of-store worlds.
One way to manage this is to recognise that consumers’ shopping process – from the earliest moments of simply fantasising about a purchase, right up to the ‘moment of truth’ of picking the product off the shelf – is governed by three universal shopper mind states: Locating, Exploring and Dreaming.
Today’s seamless customer journey acknowledges that any shopper can exhibit these different mind states at any given moment, often switching from one to another in an instant, depending on their particular shopping mission.
Omni-channel retail joins up the myriad touch points and options that digitally-enabled shoppers now have, ensuring that all touchpoints are seamlessly orchestrated to resonate with all three mind states. Looking after the Locators remains important, but focus can also be given to creating more engaging and rewarding experiences for the Explorers and the Dreamers. That is the way to capture heads, hearts and hands.
We’re pleased to share with you the findings of sister WPP agency Millward Brown’s BrandZ Top 100, one of the world’s most comprehensive brand valuation guides. Over 40 years translating brands into consumer experience, FITCH is proud to have partnered with so many of the brands you will find featured designs on these pages.
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We’d be delighted to discuss the findings found here as well as Seamless Retail and the shopper mind states. We hope you will find the report insightful.