World’s Largest Brand Tracking Survey Announces 2022 Categories

New Brand Keys Survey Includes Everything From Airlines to COVID Vaccines

Brand Keys, the global leader in brand loyalty and emotional customer engagement research released their category list for the company’s January 2022 survey.

“The category and sectors included for 2022 reflect the tectonic changes that have taken place in the marketplace over the past two years and continue to change the consumer brandscape,” said Robert Passikoff, Brand Keys founder and president. “Household cleaners, Hand sanitizers, Canned soup, Video Chat, even Toilet paper only gained enough consumer consequence to be included recently.”

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Categories are granular so we look at brands & the marketplace the same way consumers look at brands & the marketplace. More importantly, we measure how they’ll behave in the marketplace.”— Leigh Benatar

Categories and Consumers Evolve (With Or Without COVID)

“Categories – like consumers –evolved over time, i.e., Brand Keys tracked SLR Cameras until cameras were integrated into mobile phones, and mobile phones until they became smartphones,” noted Passikoff. “MySpace, the first social media site, was established 2004 so Social Networking was added. The same is true for brands. TikTok appeared and was included in 2016. We’ll add Meta when it becomes a reality.” The Brand Keys data base has been updated and enhanced every year since 1997. Now we’re including categories like COVID vaccines, Used Vehicle Retailers, and Food and Grocery Delivery Services.”

1,660 Brands, 148 Categories, 22 Industry Sectors
The 2022 survey will be the 25th year Brand Keys has conducted the brand loyalty tracking survey. “We started with 25 categories and have added categories and sector ever since,” note Leigh Benatar, EVP of Loyalty and Competitive Intelligence. “The 2022 database will include 4.3 million consumer assessments and loyalty and engagement analytics for 1,660 brands in 148 categories.” These brand assessments have been independently-validated by professional organizations including The Advertising Research Foundation, and correlate highly (0.80+) with positive, in-market consumer behavior.

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An overview of the 2022 categories includes:
Airlines
Allergy Medications
App-Based Rideshare
Athletic Footwear
Automotive
Banks
Beer
Bottled Water
Breakfast Bars
Canned Soup
Car Rental
Casual/Fast Casual Dining
Coffee (Out-of-Home)
Coffee (Packaged)
Computers
Cosmetics (Luxury & Mass)
Credit Cards
Deodorants
Energy Drinks
E-Readers
Evening News
File Hosting
Flat Screen TV
Gasoline
Headphones
Hotels
Household Cleaners
Ice Cream
Instant Messaging
Insurance
Lip Balm
Major League Sports
Major League Video Games
MFP Copiers
Morning News
Mutual Funds
Natural Food Stores
Online Brokerages
Online Music
Online Payments
Online Retailers
Online Shoes
Online Travel Sites
Online Video Streaming
Pain Relievers
Parcel Delivery
Pet Foods
Pharmacies
Pizza
Premium Cold Cuts
Price Clubs
Printers
Quick Serve Restaurants
Retail
Search Engines
Snacks
Smartphone
Social Networking
Soft Drinks
Tax Preparation
Tablets
Tequila
Ticketing Services
Toothpaste
Toys
Used Vehicle Retail
Vaccines
Video Chat
Vodka
Whiskey
Wireless Services
Yogurt

“All categories are segmented,” said Benatar. “Retail covers everything from On-line to Sporting Goods. Insurance covers car, home, and life. We look at luxury and mass market for Cosmetics. We look at the brands and the marketplace the way consumers look at the marketplace. Mor importantly, how they behave in the marketplace”

COVID Effects On The Marketplace

“COVID hasn’t just expanded the categories in which consumers are focusing, there have been direct effects to consumer expectations. For example, pre-COVID expectations for ‘Airline Safety’ (a critical driver of loyalty) could best be summarized as the plane takes off, the plane doesn’t fall out the sky, the plane lands, and if it’s on-time and security didn’t let anyone bring on a gun that was a bonus,” noted Passikoff. Add COVID-19 into the airline safety equation and brand loyalty metrics will shift, often dramatically.” The ability to anticipate and meet expectations are key determinants of consumer loyalty, marketing success, and brand profitability.

Brand Keys Survey Access

For more information about the Brand Keys 2022 Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, or information about integrating predictive loyalty and emotional engagement metrics into your marketing and branding efforts, please contact Leigh Benatar at leighb@brandkeys.com.

Independently-Validated Methodology

For the past 24 years, Brand Keys has interviewed consumers, 16 to 65 years of age from the nine US Census Regions, who self-selected categories in which they are consumers and brands for which they are customers for the Customer Loyalty Engagement Index.

Brand Keys uses an independently-validated research methodology – including The Advertising Research Foundation’s “First Opinion Review” – that fuses emotional and rational aspects of categories, identifies four category-specific path-to-purchase behavioral loyalty drivers, identifies expectations consumers hold for each driver, the values that form the components of each driver, and their percent-contribution to engagement, loyalty, and profitability.

A combination of psychological inquiry and statistical analyses – accounts for 96% of the variance, has a test/re-test reliability of 0.93, and produces results generalizable at the 95% confidence level. Brand Keys loyalty assessments correlate with positive consumer behavior in the marketplace at the 0.80+ level. It has been successfully used in B2B, B2C, and D2C categories in 35 countries.

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