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7 Strategies from 4 of the World’s Most Valuable Brands
Aaron Shields
June 18, 2024 • Reading Time: 11 minutes
Last week, Kantar released its annual Most Valuable Global Brands report.
The top 10 were:
Apple
Google
Microsoft
Amazon
McDonald’s.
NVIDIA
Visa
Facebook
Oracle
Tenecent
Kantar released the report with an hour-long presentation from Kantar and leaders in some of the brands represented in the report.
And during the presentation, leaders from some of the most valuable brands offered critical branding strategies that most companies miss.
Here are 7 brand-building strategies from Pepsi, Corona, Infosys, and P&G:
Branding involves doing something consistently in order to increase trust in order to increase preference in order to increase the likelihood of a desired outcome.
Strategy #1: Valuable Brands Are Consistent (Pepsi)
How flexible can a brand be?
It’s a common debate. And the differing answers are one of the main reasons some brands do well, some just eek their way forward, and some just flop.
Many marketers see brands as somewhat flexible. They prize relevancy. And they believe it’s OK to be able to change the brand regularly and have positive results.
It’s beliefs like this that result in rebrands. It’s the idea that you can start clean but somehow still retain the brand equity you’ve built with your audience.
It’s what creates a commercial environment where people wouldn’t care if 75% of brands just went poof and disappeared.
And it reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of branding.
Branding involves doing something consistently in order to increase trust in order to increase preference in order to increase the likelihood of a desired outcome.
It lets customers and potential customers clearly understand what you do for them. It helps them shortcut decision-making.
If you’re constantly changing, you can’t create trust, and you can’t shortcut decision-making.
Imagine you meet someone. And every time you meet them, they act differently. How would you describe them? Could you even describe them?
Inconsistency leads to confusion. And confusion doesn’t lead to trust.
But that’s what happens when you make your brand flexible.
Your brand gives you the playground you can play in. It creates the constraints for your marketing.
How you express the brand can change. Just look at Nike’s ads. They’ve consistently shown a dominant warrior athlete in different ways for decades.
But the brand itself—what the customers believe about you—shouldn’t change. Or you risk breaking the power of your branding.
Jane Wakely, Chief Consumer and Marketing Officer at PepsiCo (#4 Most Valuable Brand in Food and Beverages), understands this is critical.
She gets what many marketers don’t: The difference between changing your visual identity and rebranding. And how critical it is for any changes to stay consistent with the brand.
In Wakely’s words:
Firstly, I think we have to be very humble as marketers. Memory structures, distinctiveness, brand meaning is built over generations. It’s very hard to do very fast. …
And one of the things that the greatest brands in the world do is they drive consistent meaning, they drive consistent distinctivity, because that’s the way we shortcut into the memory structure and the fabric of culture. …
“It’s not a new logo. It’s a visual ID that deeply draws from the past, from where Pepsi comes from, from what Pepsi stands for, from the shortcuts in people’s memories that distinguish and make Pepsi recognizable.
But it also imbues new meaning.
And so, for example, the Pepsi visual ID relaunch that went around the world. The pulse, the logo, the energy that comes from that: it makes you feel something, it moves you, it makes you feel energized. It’s incredibly exciting.
And that visceral response, that emotional response is triggering new memory structures that pull from the past but distinctly propel us into the future.
In branding, it’s critical for emotions to link back to the product’s function. If they don’t, it creates confusion. And confusion harms your brand.
Strategy #2: Integrate Functional and Emotional Dimensions (Corona)
Lack of harmony between functional and emotional elements of a brand is incredibly common.
One of the most obvious examples is car commercials during the Super Bowl that try to be funny.
They get a lot of engagement. But do they work?
In 2016, Hyundai promoted its Elantra with The Chase and Ryanville and its Genesis with First Date during the game.
Within a month, the ads earned over 52 million YouTube views. They were the first and seventh most-viewed Super Bowl spots. All three were in the top 10 of USA Today’s Ad Meter, with First Date landing the top spot.
However, Hyundai sales only rose 1%, and the highly advertised Elantra or Genesis didn’t even drive the sales. They were driven by a vehicle they didn't advertise: the Tucson SUV.
And that's not unique.
In 2014, VW’s Passat was the most shared Super Bowl ad ever. But sales ended up being down every month, year over year.
The problem is that these ads draw attention to the emotion of the ad, which has nothing to do with the product’s function.
Do you really want to own the funny car?
What ends up happening is that these ads create a distraction effect from the product. And according to research studies, this distraction effect is even worse for heavy product users.
They focus attention on the emotions of the ad itself, which is disconnected from the product. As a result, there is conflict with the associations people have with the product.
In branding, it’s critical for emotions to link back to the product’s function. If they don’t, it creates confusion. And confusion harms your brand.
It’s something that Marcel Marcondes, global CMO of AB InBev, gets. AB InBev owns Corona ((#100 Most Valuable Brand Overall and #2 in Alcohol).
He understands how critical it is to integrate the functional and emotional dimensions of the brand.
In Marcondes’s words:
The superpower of Corona is exactly the fact that the brand lands both the functional and the emotional sides in a very smooth and integrated way. .
[E]motionally speaking ... what we say here is [that] Corona inspires people to disconnect from stress, from routine. To reconnect with their true selves. And that usually happens when you are outdoors, when you are outside.
So Corona says that outside is our best side.
This is why everything that Corona does is about that moment of sigh: have a break from the routine, go outside, stay close to nature, and reconnect with nature, reconnect with your true nature. Be yourself again. Relax and enjoy.
That’s very powerful for any brand. And Corona does it really well.
Now, the tough part is to make sure it connects well with the functional side, too. …
And because it’s all about nature, Corona is made with 100% natural ingredients. And because Corona is all about inviting people to be outside, Corona takes care of the outside. So we have a lot of programs in terms of plastic-free products, products protecting the beaches, removing plastic from the oceans, and from there we go.
And it’s not because Corona wants to be on the headlines. It’s because it connects with the central reason for Corona to exist. So there’s a reason for Corona to do that.
So, we connect the emotional side and the functional side in a very smooth, authentic, and genuine way, this gives a lot of power to Corona as a brand and consumers recognize it anywhere in the world.”
The problem many businesses get into is that they are so focused on the functional solution they deliver that they forget the real problems they solve for customers.
Takeaway #3: To Deliver on Your Promise, Stay Up to Date (Infosys)
Brands should have a list of things they promise always to do and things they promise never to do.
They are pacts you make with your customers. These are non-negotiables. They can’t be broken. They help create consistency. And they help create trust.
The problem many businesses get into is that they are so focused on the functional solution they deliver that they forget the real problems they solve for customers.
What those problems look like over time will change.
For example, imagine it’s the mid-1800s, and you were the world’s best buggy maker—for a horse and buggy. You found a way to make the buggy lighter than anyone else so the horse could pull it faster. Your promise was to get your customers to their destination faster than any other buggy.
But, then, along comes the car.
Most companies would focus on improving the buggy. They’d try to make it even lighter. They’d forget the promise they made: to get their customers to their destination quickly.
The promise had nothing to do with the buggy. It had to do with solving a need.
The best company would start working on building a car that could get their customers there even faster. They’d keep their promise but change the means of doing it in line with technological advances.
Sumit Virmai, CMO of Infosys (#74 Most Valuable Brand Overall, and #20 in Business Technology and Services Platforms), gets it.
He understands that what you offer your customers isn’t your product. Your offer is what matters to your customers.
In Virmani’s words:
The idea of articulating a promise has to be then driven by that promise being delivered every shift in the industry.
So let me give you an example:
When there was this massive adoption of cloud, Infosys was the first services brand in the industry to launch Infosys Cobalt, which is a portfolio of our cloud services to actually eliminate the chaos around cloud with a very clear point of view as to how Cobalt is going to enable that transition. …
So, the idea simply is articulating a promise is one thing. How can organizations continue to stay relevant to their clients by looking around corners and proactively investing in innovations, testing them at scale, and actually bringing it out to the market with confidence.
And we believe one of the reasons [the] Infosys brand has stood the test of time is because of our foundational commitment to promise but, more importantly, our foundational commitment to staying relevant to our clients’ requirements. …
I think it all ultimately comes down to what’s your North Star. And I think a North Star for any brand doesn’t necessarily have to be what it offers. But it has to be what the customer needs. And your communication has to actively stay relevant to the shifting needs of your customer.
Interlude
Well, this is getting long.
I still have 4 more takeaways. But I’m trying to keep these newsletters to under 10 minutes. And I’m quickly approaching that limit.
So, I’ll continue in next week's newsletter with 4 more takeaways from the world’s most valuable brands.
Since I don’t want to leave you hanging, here are the 4 takeaways I’ll dive into next week:
Solve Real Customer Tensions at Every Touchpoint (P&G)
Figure Out Where Your Brand Is Most Relevant (Corona)
Be Available Physically and Mentally Wherever Your Customers Are (P&G)
Shape Your Category by Predicting the Future (Pepsi)
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