Publicis Groupe and dentsu among most loved firms globally in ranking dominated by brands

Network agencies Publicis Groupe (#11) and dentsu International (#13), as well as consultancy firm Capgemini (#19), have been ranked among the top 50 brands that managed to grow the love it received from consumers during the period, a report by Talkwalker said. In a list mainly dominated by brand-side companies, these three are the only agencies and consultancy firm to have made the ranking. 

Topping the list as the world's most loved brand is beauty brand Huda Beauty, followed by French kitchen appliance company Moulinex. Rounding off the top five are M.A.C Cosmetics in third place, Benefit Cosmetics in fourth place, and Tefal in fifth place. In Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Milo was ranked the most loved brand in the region followed by Blibli, Mango, ASUS, DJI, Spotify, Origin, LEGO, Axiata Group and OnePlus. This year’s list has brands from fashion and beauty as well as leisure and entertainment to household, food and hospitality and travel.

To measure brand love, Talkwalker compared 1,228 global brands across social media, news, blogs, forums, and more to identify the brands that people engaged with, that people criticised less, that people had a joyful connection with, and that people simply said they loved. This was between 1 July 2020 to 1 April 2021, and it gathered data from 30 industries based on several industry listings and regional marketing expertise. They include Interbrand, FTSE 100, S&P, NASDAQ, DOW, Fortune 100 Best Companies and BrandZ.

According to the report, this ranked brands not just on how they performed, but how well they performed compared to the standards all other brands were setting. It also looked at how brands were building audience connections through sponsorship, employee advocacy, customer experience, influencer marketing, positive PR, engaging social media strategy and trend engagement, among others. MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to Talkwalker for additional information about this study.

According to the study, the increase in PR usage by Publicis Groupe had a positive impact on the agency's brand. The various work performed by the agency boosted its clients’ performance and simultaneously boosted the brand’s too, as its name was included in much of the positive news and PR Publicis created, Talkwalker said. Over the past year, it has bagged accounts such as Mondelēz, McDonald's in China, and skincare brand Pechoin. At the same time, the Groupe also made news headlines with senior leadership appointments including Amrita Randhawa as Southeast Asia CEO, Sudarshan Saha as MD - media and digital in Malaysia, Natalie Lam as chief creative officer for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and Sony Nichani as Indonesia CEO. Meanwhile, Publicis also made headlines last April when it first announced its US$540 million cost-reduction plan but this was prior to the specified timeline in which data for the report was gathered.

Similarly, dentsu also drove mentions through the advertising and PR work it did for global clients. Dentsu's own in-house research, such as the digital society index, also boosted mentions of the agency, with reports shared across media outlets. In the last few months, it bagged clients including Resorts World Genting, AIA Malaysia, and 99 Group. It also merged Lemonade and Isobar in Malaysia and revamped iProspect with a new model and tagline. Separately, the agency announced last December that it was cutting about 12.5% of its total headcount overseas, as part of the comprehensive review and accelerated transformation programme.

Likewise, Capgemini also benefited from its PR engagement. According to Talkwalker, its World Wealth Report resonated particularly with consumers this year, with the pandemic having a strong financial impact on businesses and consumers. Its sponsorship of World Rugby also boosted mentions and fan connections.

According to its website, in the year 2021 alone, Capgemini saw the launch of various sustainability efforts. In April this year, CEO Aiman Ezzat met with Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of French space agency CNES, to discuss issues of digital transformation and corporate social responsibility. This made headlines as both underlined their desire to make the European space sector a key accelerator driving moves towards a sustainable ecological transition. In that same month, Capgemini announced that it is working with Heng Hiap Industries, a fully integrated plastic recycling company in Malaysia, to design an innovative business roadmap for a new mobile app. The mobile app aims to reward and simplify the process of plastic waste recycling for consumers in their communities. 

According to Talkwalker, each brand was ranked based on engagement rate and net sentiment using Talkwalker’s Quick Search to create a shortlist of 153 brands. A score was then formulated based on this, as well as the following criteria within Talkwalker analytics. These included consumer engagement rate and sentiment across social media, consumer engagement rate and sentiment in news, percentage of mentions that were categorised as related to “joy”, and percentage of mentions that contain love-related keywords.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, Talkwalker noted less organic conversations created by consumers, as personal brand interactions dipped. Instead, there was an increase in mentions from brand-led stories such as press releases, new articles and custom research, as brands looked to replace those missing conversations. Talkwalker added that the scoring for the report was weighted based on the year-on-year change. Local rankings also used the same methodology, focused only on mentions identified as originating from the relevant region.

Photo courtesy: 123RF

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