Carat today announced the launch of The Brand EQ Index, a proprietary piece of research ranking and revealing the most emotionally intelligent brands in Australia, and across the world.
The EQ Index brings a different lens to an age-old question: ‘What are the traits of the most successful brands?’
“As the world becomes more technical and more complex, we can lose sight of what we ultimately do in media and marketing – and that is to understand real people and design experiences that add value to their lives,” said Sue Squillace (pictured), CEO Carat ANZ.
“Through our research, we know that ‘human’ brands outpace their competitors and drive stronger business performance. That is why our new positioning and process ‘Designing for People’ is rooted in design-thinking principles of empathy and agile collaboration to bring different disciplines together to work at pace and design customer centric experiences,” Squillace added.
Carat has quickly found rich opportunities to apply its new ‘Designing for People’ process for clients in 2020, recognising that empathising with people is more important than ever in a disrupted and disconnected world.
For example, for client Microsoft, Carat and dentsu’s in-house content division The Story Lab launched ‘Reshaping Australia Dialogues’ in partnership with the Australian Financial Review. The six-part webinar series sought to put a human face to business innovation, helping business leaders understand and navigate the new challenges and opportunities presented by the COVID crisis. It involved exclusive conversations with leading luminaries in the business, technology and sociology sectors across July to September 2020.
Microsoft is also one of the highest achieving brands in Australia’s Top 20 as part of the Brand EQ Index, scoring 72% along with Google. Other brands include Samsung, eBay, Kellogg’s, Netflix, Coca-Cola, Nike and Gillette which scored 65% and above. Below that is Nivea on 64%, Ikea, Subway and Philips on 63% and Adidas, Apple, KFC and Panasonic 62%, with Mercedes and MasterCard both on 60%.
Beginning in March 2020, Carat surveyed 10,000 people about their perceptions of 48 globally known brands in five categories: retail, food & drink, technology, automobile and financial services. Respondents in ten markets evaluated how well they think brands are doing in different areas of emotional intelligence: empathy, self-awareness, social skills, internal motivation, and self-regulation. Given the active state of change during this evaluation period, the raw results draw from deep introspection on behalf of the survey’s participants.
Other key findings globally Include:
- The most emotionally intelligent category is retail, however in Australia the Food & Drink and the Technology categories hold the top spot. Adidas, Nike, and Amazon reached top positions. Automotive and financial services brands have weaker-than-average emotional intelligence.
- Technology and innovation do have a human face– one of the clearest findings of this study is the close relationship between ‘human outcomes’ and the importance of technology for a brand. If we look at the top 20 scorers, eight are heavily oriented around digital technology and innovation, whether that is in a ‘pure’ way (Google & Microsoft) or by redefining the way we purchase (Mastercard & Visa). This flies in the face of much of what has been argued by experts concerned with the de-humanising effects of tech.
- Technology brands dominate the top and the bottom. Google is the world’s most emotionally intelligent brand in 2020. Microsoft, Samsung, Amazon and Apple also made it to the world’s top 10.
The full report, which can be found here also dives deep into key learnings for brands, ranging from how they can engage younger audiences to how they should use their EQ chops to build trust with consumers.
Originally posted on B&T here.