Brand Personality 2012
©Decision Technology 2012 Brand Personality 2012 1
Top Brands 2012
Most Innovative
Brand 2012
Best Overall
Brand 2012
Most Prestigious
Brand 2012
Most Honest
Brand 2012
Most Powerful
Brand 2012
Most Green
Brand 2012
© Decision Technology 2012 Brand Personality 2012 2
Welcome to Decision Technology’s 8th Annual Brand Personality
survey. This year’s report has a brand new look, but still with all of
our unique insights into some of the UK’s biggest brands.
As always, this year’s survey contains some fascinating results that
get behind the headlines and show what the UK public really thinks.
For example, whilst MPs may have publically shamed Amazon,
Google and Starbucks over their tax affairs it is the Conservative
Party and the British Parliament who are languishing 3rd and 8th
from bottom in our ranking of the most trusted organizations.
Read on to find out who the UK public see as the most (and least)
Honest, Innovative, Prestigious, Powerful and Green brands of 2012,
based on a survey of over 700 consumers. We also report 2012’s
most and least positively perceived brands overall.
©Decision Technology 2012 Brand Personality 2012 3
Contents
Top Brands 2012…. ................................................................................................................................. 1
Welcome ................................................................................................................................................. 2
Contents .................................................................................................................................................. 3
Brands Tracked in 2012 ........................................................................................................................... 4
Brand Personality Traits .......................................................................................................................... 5
Honesty .............................................................................................................................................. 6
Innovation .......................................................................................................................................... 7
Power ................................................................................................................................................. 8
Prestige .............................................................................................................................................. 9
Green-ness ....................................................................................................................................... 10
Sentiment ......................................................................................................................................... 11
Industry Personalities ........................................................................................................................... 12
About Decision Technology .................................................................................................................. 13
© Decision Technology 2012 Brand Personality 2012 4
Brands Tracked in 2012
New brands added in 2012: Jaguar, giffgaff, Phones4U, Poundland,
©Decision Technology 2012 Brand Personality 2012 5
Brand Personality Traits
What is Brand Personality?
It is well known that people have measurable
personalities that can be used to predict their
behaviour in new situations. According to the
leading model of human personality, the
myriad adjectives we use to describe people
can be distilled into just five key dimensions
or traits: Openness, Conscientiousness,
Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism.
There is also evidence that animals have
personalities too.
Our own research, as well as studies from the
US, have shown that the same personality
measurement methodologies can be applied
to companies and organizations to measure
their “brand personality”. Brand personality
also appears to be related to performance
and financial results.
We have identified a five-factor model of
brand personality. Each factor is represented
by a weighted mix of adjectives that help
characterize them. For example, the “Honest”
dimension is characterized by adjectives like
caring and trustworthy.
The Traits Explained
Our first trait, Honesty, measures a brand’s
integrity. Trustworthy brands that are
perceived to care about their customers will
receive high Honesty scores.
Innovation tracks the energy and creativity of
a brand. Stale or copy-cat brands receive a
lower score on this measure.
Power relates to presence and dominance in
the market. Ubiquitous and widely-purchased
brands score highly on this trait.
Prestige is concerned with the social
significance associated with a brand. It is
typically related to exclusivity and quality.
Finally, Green-ness is a measure of perceived
environmental impact.
In addition, we also report the overall positive
or negative Sentiment associated with each
brand, as measured by the tendency for
consumers to associate that brand with
positive or negative adjectives of any kind.
© Decision Technology 2012 Brand Personality 2012 6
Honesty
As in previous years, the list of most trusted brands is dominated by charities and public institutions,
but notable three retailers (John Lewis, the Body Shop and Marks and Spencer) are also in the top
ten. To find out more about building and protecting brand trust you can read the research brief we
published earlier in the year on our website.
At the other end of the scale, politicians continue to be mistrusted, with the Conservative Party
faring especially badly as the UK’s third least trusted organization. Social network Twitter may be
growing in popularity but it also suffered a big drop in trust, falling into the bottom ten brands.
Most Honest Brands
2012
Rank
2011
Rank
Royal Society for Protection
of Birds
1st 1st
Cancer Research
2nd 2nd
Help for Heroes
3rd 3rd
Oxfam
4th 4th
Unicef
5th 5th
John Lewis
6th 9th
Body Shop
7th 12th
Marks & Spencer
8th 7th
NHS
9th 14th
Cambridge University
10th 10th
Least Honest Brands
2012
Rank
2011
Rank
European Parliament 1st 1st
FIFA 2nd 2nd
Conservative Party 3rd 7th
Ladbrokes 4th 8th
The Sun 5th 4th
William Hill 6th 3rd
7th 24th
British Parliament 8th 11th
Ryanair 9th 9th
The Premier League 10th 6th
©Decision Technology 2012 Brand Personality 2012 7
Innovation
The list of most innovative brands is made up of technology firms and online businesses, including
some of the world’s largest and most valuable companies. Notably Amazon have leap-frogged
Google into second place, perhaps due to their increasing forays into the world of hardware with
their line of Kindle e-readers and tablet computers.
Politicians again fare badly, with all three main political parties in the list of least innovative brands.
Most Innovative Brands
2012
Rank
2011
Rank
Apple 1st 1st
Amazon 2nd 4th
Google 3rd 2nd
Microsoft 4th 3rd
Youtube 5th 7th
Facebook 6th 6th
eBay 7th 5th
Samsung 8th 12th
Sony 9th 8th
Sky TV 10th 10th
Least Innovative Brands
2012
Rank
2011
Rank
Lib Dem Party 1st 1st
William Hill 2nd 11th
Labour Party 3rd 2nd
Ladbrokes 4th 9th
European Parliament 5th 5th
Royal & Sun Alliance 6th 7th
Prudential 7th 6th
Conservative Party 8th 3rd
Scottish & Southern Energy 9th 10th
Royal Bank of Scotland 10th 8th
© Decision Technology 2012 Brand Personality 2012 8
Power
The organizations in our list of the most powerful brands of 2012 are unchanged from 2011, but software giant Microsoft has slipped off the top spot whilst competitor Apple has climbed one place.
Mobile networks, retailers and handset manufacturers take many of the spots on the list of least powerful brands, suggesting that consumers perceive the mobile market to be highly competitive, except perhaps in the area of operating systems, with market leaders Google (Android) and Apple (iOS) both in the list of most powerful brands.
Most Powerful Brands
2012
Rank
2011
Rank
British Army 1st 4th
The Police 2nd 2nd
Microsoft 3rd 1st
Bank of England 4th 5th
BBC TV 5th 3rd
NHS 6th 7th
Google 7th 6th
British Parliament 8th 9th
Apple 9th 10th
Coca-Cola 10th 8th
Least Powerful Brands
2012
Rank
2011
Rank
giffgaff 1st NEW
HTC 2nd 10th
Phones4U 3rd NEW
3 Mobile 4th 14th
Gap 5th 3rd
Tesco Mobile 6th 4th
Lib Dem Party 7th 5th
Uswitch.com 8th 2nd
Scottish & Southern Energy
9th 12th
William Hill 10th 23rd
TV
©Decision Technology 2012 Brand Personality 2012 9
Prestige
Newly tracked in 2012, Jaguar is this year’s most Prestigious brand. Poundland has the more dubious honour of entering the survey this year as the least prestigious brand.
Some great rivalries also have a special place in these rankings: Mercedes-Benz is more prestigious than BMW; Oxford University more prestigious than Cambridge; and (at the other extreme) easyJet is more prestigious than Ryanair.
Most Prestigious Brands
2012
Rank
2011
Rank
Jaguar
1st NEW
Mercedes-Benz
2nd 1st
BMW
3rd 2nd
Oxford University
4th 3rd
Cambridge University
5th 4th
Audi
6th 5th
Apple
7th 7th
British Airways
8th 10th
John Lewis
9th 6th
Waitrose 10th 8th
Least Prestigious Brands
2012
Rank
2011
Rank
Poundland
1st NEW
The Sun
2nd 1st
Aldi
3rd 3rd
Lidl
4th 2nd
Ryanair
5th 6th
6th 5th
giffgaff
7th NEW
EasyJet
8th 4th
Youtube
9th 8th
10th 9th
© Decision Technology 2012 Brand Personality 2012 10
Green-ness
Whilst the list of least green brands is never a surprise – populated by oil companies, airlines and car manufacturers – the list of most green brands may be more unexpected. Supermarket Waitrose has jumped an impressive twelve places to enter this year’s top ten, but it still ranks behind Google and Amazon, showing that many consumers believe online businesses to be inherently green.
Most Green Brands
2012
Rank
2011
Rank
Royal Society for Protection of Birds
1st 1st
Body Shop 2nd 5th
Oxfam 3rd 2nd
Help for Heroes 4th 4th
Unicef 5th 6th
Cancer Research 6th 3rd
Marks & Spencer 7th 11th
Google 8th 7th
Amazon 9th 8th
Waitrose 10th 22nd
Least Green Brands
2012
Rank
2011
Rank
Ryanair 1st 1st
EasyJet 2nd 2nd
BP 3rd 3rd
British Airways 4th 4th
Shell 5th 5th
Virgin Atlantic 6th 7th
Jaguar 7th NEW
Castrol 8th 6th
Mercedes-Benz 9th 8th
Renault 10th 14th
© Decision Technology 2012 Brand Personality 2011 11
Sentiment
Apple retains its crown as the brand that overall attracts the most positive sentiment from UK
consumers, but it may need to watch it’s back as Amazon has leap-frogged BMW, Mercedes-Benz
and Google to sit in third place in this year’s ranking. It has also been a good year for British retailers,
with both Marks and Spencer and John Lewis breaking into the top ten.
Most Positive Sentiment
2012
Rank
2011
Rank
1st 1st
2nd 2nd
3rd 6th
4th 4th
5th 3rd
6th 5th
7th 11th
8th 9th
9th NEW
10th 13th
Least Positive Sentiment
2012
Rank
2011
Rank
1st 3rd
2nd 1st
3rd 2nd
4th 5th
5th 6th
6th 4th
7th 10th
8th NEW
9th 14th
10th 12th
© Decision Technology 2012 Brand Personality 2012 12
Industry Personalities
Every brand is different and large extremes of
personality difference can exist within a single
industry. For example, British Airways is one
of the UK’s most prestigious brands whilst
budget competitors Ryanair and easyJet are
amongst the least prestigious.
Nonetheless, there are also interesting
commonalities between brands in each
industry. By averaging across the personality
ratings of each brand within an industry we
can focus on the key differences between
industries.
For example, Technology brands are positively
perceived due to their innovativeness, whilst
Charities are honest and green. Car Makers
are not at all green, but compensate by often
being quite prestigious. Political parties are
least positively perceived, primarily because
they tend to be seen as dishonest and not
very innovative.
Industry Personalities in 2012
Sentiment
Honesty Innovation Power Prestige Green
Technology
Charities
Car Makers
FMCG
Institutions
Online
Supermarkets
Retailers
Media
Brewers
Airlines
Telecoms
Oil & Gas
Banks
Insurers
Utilities
Politics
© Decision Technology 2012 Brand Personality 2011 13
About Decision Technology
Founded in 2002, Decision Technology is a research consultancy dedicated to
the study of human decision-making and the development of any associated
practical and commercial applications.
We apply extensive knowledge of academic research to approach business
issues with the best ideas and evidence available. We use rigorous techniques,
inspired by psychological science, to assess consumer data in new ways. This
means our insights are more robust and more representative of real life than
those of traditional market research, enabling us to better inform and improve
business practice.
For further information please see our website at www.dectech.co.uk