The Brands We Love

As residents of the Pacific Northwest, we love our morning lattes. We love our sports teams. We love reading on our tablets and listening to music we bought online through our smartphones while we commute to work in our down jackets. And we love the brands that make these things possible.

But what makes a brand lovable? The market research team at Ipsos recently asked 1,500 Pacific Northwest residents to evaluate 75 Washington and Oregon brands to answer this question, as well as to determine which brands are most loved in the region. The winners? Amazon is on top, followed by Costco, Microsoft, Alaska Airlines and Starbucks.

This list isnt surprising, given that these companies embody the spirit of the Pacific Northwest. We think of ourselves as innovative, entrepreneurial and socially responsible which, taken together, these brands are. Doing business with passion and heart is what most Pacific Northwest residents might say makes for a strong brand.

Other brands in the top 20 list also arent surprising: Retailers like Nordstrom, Nike and REI are staples in any top Pacific Northwest brand list. Whats more surprising are brands that fall outside the realm of what most people might even consider a brand. Consider the Seattle Seahawks and Seattle Mariners. The Seahawks beat out all clothing retailers to claim the No. 6 spot right under Starbucks; the Mariners scored higher than Nordstrom! Also interesting is the appearance of brands like the Salvation Army, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the YMCA, none of which offer traditional goods or services. Allrecipes.com makes a surprise appearance as well: This online recipe mecca known among do-it-yourself foodies as the place to learn how to whip up a Coq au Vin beat out brands like Eddie Bauer and Expedia, which arguably get more consumer exposure. These results raise the question: What makes a brand lovable?

Some might say love is just one of those things: You know it when you feel it. But thought leaders and researchers at Ipsos have found a way to actually measure it. Numerous studies in more than 20 countries involving 30 categories and thousands of brands have tested and validated Ipsos Attitudinal Equity score as a powerful measure of brand love. Want to know how lovable you are against competitors in your category? Attitudinal Equity can tell you that with a precision that maps incredibly closely to market share.

Attitudinal Equity relies on an algorithm that essentially rests on two key measures: brand performance and brand closeness the extent to which consumers consider a brand to be part of themselves. The result is an indexed score that can tell you how you size up against your competitors. The higher your indexed score, the more you are loved.

But brands can be loved for a number of different reasons. You

may love a brand overall but still think it doesnt meet the highest standards of innovation, uniqueness or quality. Thats why the Ipsos brand love study also asked Pacific Northwest residents how they felt about Washington and Oregon brands on a number of other dimensions. Specifically, survey respondents were asked to identify the brands they most identify with, are unique and most innovative as well as those brands with which they have had positive/negative experiences. Respondents were also asked about which brands are most associated with high quality, which make a positive contribution to the Pacific Northwest and which ones people are proudest to use (among other things).

Some brands know this. Sports teams are woven into the fabric of the community, says Gregg Greene, the Mariners senior director of marketing. Mariners players and personnel are involved in community activities throughout the Northwest. Moreover, our broadcast partners, Root Sports and 710 ESPN Seattle, along with our own digital media channels, provide us an opportunity to stay connected with fans year-round. In other words, by branding itself as an integral part of the Pacific Northwest community, the Mariners organization has managed to be present constantly. To consumers, this visibility translates into a likelihood to interact with the sports team, which keeps the Mariners not only top of mind but also loved even when the team may not be performing well.As part of its analysis of brand love, Ipsos analyzed data using a method called driver analysis to determine which of a number of metrics including but not limited to quality, innovation and uniqueness, as well as positive buzz and positive experience have the greatest impact on lovability. Results indicated that the likelihood to interact with a brand is most apt to explain brand lovability. The more consumers anticipate engaging with a brand, the more lovable that brand is. Implications of this information are enormous. A brand can increase its lovability quotient simply by insinuating itself into consumers lives on a regular basis.

Amazon is a great example of a brand that most consumers in the Pacific Northwest and the country interact with regularly as they look to it to purchase just about everything imaginable. Through its Prime Membership program, Amazon has built an even stronger connection to consumers by offering free shipping. By also offering free access to movies, TV

shows and music, the company has inserted itself into multiple day-to-day experiences with customers. Creating more ways to engage with consumers on a regular basis could be the surest way to their hearts.

When it comes to how brands rank on the various metrics included in this study, a few brands stand out, mostly because theyre not what we think of as typical brands. Most of us dont interact with the Seahawks or the Mariners year-round. These arent brands we use at home, drive to work in, wear at the gym or consume when we need a snack. And yet Pacific Northwest residents rank them as among the most lovable. Among Washington residents specifically, the Seahawks are the fourth-most-loved brand and the Mariners the sixth most loved, both beating out Starbucks. This love for our regional sports teams is reflected in the words of one retired Snohomish County mom, who responded: The Seahawks are very lovable! They are fun, they have personality, they are winners and they are on the biggest sports stage.

And consumers attribute characteristics to these brands that could elevate them to sainthood. The Seahawks are No. 1 in making a positive contribution to the Pacific Northwest; the Mariners are No. 3. Both sports teams beat out the Gates Foundation, an organization that spends billions of dollars on such ambitious goals as eliminating malaria. Also attributed to these sports teams is a sense of uniqueness. The Seahawks rank No. 6 as being unique, even beating out local brand Zulily (No. 15), whose business model has arguably disrupted the format of online shopping. Of course, the two teams benefit from being home teams for both Washington and Oregon residents.

While the Gates Foundation ranks below the Seahawks for making a positive contribution, it is the No. 1 most socially responsible brand in the Pacific Northwest, followed by the Salvation Army, Costco and Starbucks. Which makes one wonder: If the regions largest profit-oriented entities are considered among the most socially responsible, what does social responsibility mean?

Consumer feedback gives us a hint. Starbucks and Costco have reputations for taking good care of employees, and outstanding labor practices go a long way in building a halo around a brand. Costco treats its employees very well so I choose Costco over Sams Club, even though Sams is closer, says one King County resident. Consumers regularly voice their positions on the importance of treating employees well. Customer service shows in the way a company treats and cares for its employees, says another respondent. And excellent customer service is an important way into consumers hearts.

Companies spend a lot of time and money managing the buzz people hear about them. Celebrity status comes with the risk of being accompanied by bad publicity: For all the positive things you know to be true about your favorite actress, she could still get smeared in the press. The more famous you are as a brand, the more incentive there is to make sure what people say about you is all good.

But as it happens, positive personal experience with a brand is much more telling of its Attitudinal Equity than positive buzz. In other words, showing love will get you more love than talking about it.

This finding is reflected in the performance of the most-loved brands. The Top 5 list for Positive Experience is almost identical to the list for Brand Love, the exception being that Starbucks ranks higher than Alaska Airlines for Positive Experience but lower than Alaska for Brand Love. This difference is understandable: A person’s interaction with Starbucks tend to occur on a daily basis, but no so often with Alaska Airlines.

As well, the more you interact with a brand, the more opportunity you will have for positive experiences. In any case, brands like the Seahawks, the Gates Foundation and Nike, all of which score very high for Positive Buzz, dont make the Top 5 list for Brand Love. Not that a good reputation isnt important these brands all still score very well. Its just not as powerful as experience. If the good experience is there, the love is, too.

Consumer feedback indicates that positive experiences dont have to be big, though sometimes they are. One person was an Alaska Airlines fan because Alaska Airlines took good care of our dog when she went on a trip with us; we love our dog and her health is important to us. But sometimes its the little stuff that matters. I go in every morning on my way to work and the barista remembers me and my usual drink, says a Starbucks regular. Thats a nice personal touch. An REI customer told us that a salesperson there once spent a considerable amount of time helping with a problem that may actually have been the customers fault.

Positive experiences can come from more unusual things. Consider Jones Soda, ranked No. 2 for most unique (under Amazon) and No. 10 for most innovative. People are drawn to Jones Soda for its natural ingredients and specialty flavors (including crushed melon, blue bubblegum and fufu berry). But Jones will also allow you to go online, design your own bottle label and order a case of your own personalized soda. This experience turns the typical one-way interaction between consumer and brand (consumer picks soda from a shelf) to a two-way interaction (consumer designs the soda). Positive interactions like these resonate with consumers. Find a way to make two-way interactions a regular occurrence and youll have their hearts aflutter.

Brand love is also stronger when consumers can identify with the brand. Starbucks and Microsoft perform strongly here as well. At its core, a companys brand is really a companys identity. The most attractive brands stand for what consumers stand for, offer what consumers value and believe in what consumers aspire to. One consumer had used Windows for so long that Microsoft feels like it is almost a part of me. A King County father says that lovable brands make a personal connection and understand how they directly affect my life.

Peek into the hearts of consumers and you will see this desire to connect to ideas, experiences, emotions. Brands offer these things. The strongest brands offer these things frequently, and in a positive way. And what is more lovable than that?

Survey Methodology

Ipsos interviewed more than 1,500 Washington and Oregon residents in November 2014. The sample was balanced to ensure good representation: 50 percent of respondents were female; 30 percent were 18 to 34, 35 percent 35 to 54, and 35 percent 55 and over; 64 percent were Washington residents and 36 percent were Oregon residents.

Seventy-five brands were included in the study. Each respondent was randomly assigned 10 brands to evaluate. (Asking each respondent to evaluate all 75 brands would have made the survey incredibly long and would have posed the risk of a high dropout rate.) For each brand, respondents were asked how close they feel to the brand. They were also asked to evaluate each brand on a variety of attributes.

To determine which of these various attributes is most likely to increase brand love, Ipsos conducted a driver analysis. In alphabetical order, the brands evaluated were:

Adidas	Oberto Sausage Company
Alaska Airlines	Pagliacci Pizza
Allrecipes.com	Pemco
Amazon	PMI
American Seafoods	PopCap
Avvo	Portland Timbers
Bartell Drugs	Premera Blue Cross
Big Fish Games	QFC
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation	REI
Blue Nile	Regence BlueShield
BuddyTV	Rhapsody
Caffe Vita Coffee Roasting Company	Russell Investments
Car Toys	Safeco
Cascade Designs	Salomon Snowboards
Classmates.com	Salvation Army
Columbia Sportswear	Seattle Mariners
Costco	Seattle Seahawks
Dakine	Seattle Sounders FC
DeMarini Sports	ShareBuilder
Drugstore.com	Starbucks
Eddie Bauer	Sucker Punch Productions
Evo	Sur La Table
Expedia	Tazo Tea Company
Getty Images	Theo Chocolate
Group Health Cooperative	T-Mobile
Holland America Line	Tommy Bahama
Jantzen	Trident Seafoods
Jones Soda	Trupanion
K2 Sports	Tullys Coffee
Keen	Umpqua Bank
Mervin Manufacturing	United Way
Microsoft	Uwajimaya
Mikes Hard Lemonade	Value Village
MSNBC	Washington Federal
Nike	YMCA
Nintendo of America	Zillow
Nordstrom	Zulily
	Zumiez

New Contributor | Nika Kabiri is the former managing director in the Bellevue office of Ipsos, the global marketing and branding analysis firm. She holds a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law and masters and doctoral degrees in sociology from the University of Washington.