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To get to the heart of Singaporean customers, brands need to exceed their needs, set trends and ensure trust – this is the finding of the first Brand Love Index, a new research study by Oath, a subsidiary of Verizon, and Kantar Consulting, a division of Kantar, one of the world’s leading research, data and insight companies.

Data from more than 150,000 consumers across 13 countries, including 2,400 from Singapore, were analysed, to find what drives brand love across industries, age, gender and nationality. Six drivers
of brand love were found that were consistent across industries, geographies and generations:

• Exceeds Needs – Brands that are obsessed with giving consumers what they want – often before consumers even ask. They bring the best in quality, design and performance, and offer something that competitors can’t.
• Sets Trends – These brands are all about disruption. They innovate in ways that turn their category on its head, and keep consumers excited to see what they do next.
• Shares Values – These brands care about more than the bottom line. They are value-driven and support issues that are meaningful to their consumers.
• Builds Trust – These brands deliver on their promises to consumers. They have built a relationship with consumers based on dependability and communication.
• Elevates Experiences – These brands transform ordinary to extraordinary. They deliver experiences that are consistent, engaging and memorable.
• Respects Consumers – These brands make consumers feel valued and respected. They engage with consumers in meaningful, personalised ways.

“Building a successful brand is more complex than ever, but it’s clear that love is the most important ingredient to creating long term affinity and ultimately driving sales,” said John DeVine, Chief Revenue Officer, Oath. “At Oath, we’re passionate about building brands people love and insights from our new Brand Love Index will help our global partners adapt their strategies to create more meaningful connections and deliver on what consumers really want. We are excited to work with our advertising partners to determine their brand love score, a proprietary metric derived from the Brand Love Index, to help ensure their marketing campaigns and messages are impacting it, in addition to driving awareness and purchase intent.”

Drivers of Brand Love in Asia 

Rank	Singapore	Australia	Hong Ko	Japan	Taiwan
1	Exceeds Needs	Exceeds Needs	Exceeds Needs	Exceeds Needs	Exceeds Needs
2	Sets Trends	Sets Trends	Builds Trust	Builds Trust	Builds Trust
3	Builds Trust	Builds Trust	Sets Trends	Sets Trends	Shares Values
4	Shares Values	Elevates Experiences	Respects Consumer	Respects Consumer	Sets Trends
5	Elevates Experiences	Shares Values	Shares Values	Elevates Experiences	Respect Consumer
6	Respects Consumer	Respects Consumer	Elevates Experiences	Shares Values	Elevates Experiences

What Consumers Want from Companies 

Exceed Needs was the key driver of trust for consumers around the world and APAC, and Singapore is no different, contributing to a quarter of brand love. However, local consumers love brands that set trends, making it the second most important driver to gain brand love along with Australia in Asia – unlike most other markets who ranked Trust as more important.

Singaporeans also prioritised experiences more than other markets, at over 40 per cent more on the 25 per cent global average.

“Love is key to building and establishing a relationship between companies and their customers and ultimately helps sales and ensures longevity,” said Rico Chan, Managing Director, Hong Kong, Japan and INSEA. “From camping overnight for a new fashion collection, to wearing prominent logos on their clothes and sometimes even skin, love is what takes a brand from good to great.

“As Asian brands seek to grow their presence globally, we hope that these insights will help them ensure that they are doing the right things to generate and grow brand love.”

According to the research, across the world, 67 per cent of consumers expect brands they love to publicly support equality and diversity. They want brands to Speak Up, Speak Out and back their words with their actions. This is particularly important to countries such as Singapore, Taiwan, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and the United States. However only 32 per cent want them to publicly support a political party – showing a distance between social values and political affiliation.

What Drives Brand Love 

A brand can be measured by how well it exceeds needs, sets trends, shares values, builds trust, elevates experiences and respects consumers. By analysing these drivers, the Brand Love Index revealed
the following insights to help marketers build brand love:

Outperform and overdeliver

• Consumers follow their hearts, but only to a point. How a product works and what it does is more important than feelings alone, in every industry. A brand’s ability to exceed needs by doing something no other brand does, or doing it better, is the strongest driver (30 per cent) of brand love globally. Still strong, this impacts 25 per cent of brand love in Singapore, similar to Hong Kong at 26 per cent but lagging Taiwan at 31 per cent.

Take a stand

• People want to be seen using brands that share their values (representing 12 per cent of brand love globally). Singapore, along with Taiwan, the US, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and the UK are markets where this matters most – contributing to 14 per cent of brand love.

• 67 per cent of consumers around the world expect brands they love to publicly support equality and diversity, but only 25 per cent want them to publicly support a political party.

Rethink, reinvent, repeat.

• Brands don’t have to be in an innovation-obsessed industry for consumers to expect them to set trends – this drives 18 per cent of brand love globally.
• Plus, consumers are willing to go out of their way for – and even forgive – brands that innovate in order to elevate experiences. This drives nine per cent of brand love globally and is key to brand loyalty.

Make it personal

• There’s no love without trust. Trust represents 20 per cent of brand love around the world and
  is the highest indicator of brand loyalty and admiration.

• For most other countries, Trust is the second most important category behind Exceeds Needs, but in Singapore it ranks third after Sets Trends.

Act their age

• Millennials worship innovation, and it’s no surprise their love is most influenced by setting trends (20 per cent of their love score globally).

• Older consumers place a higher value on brands they can Trust and in Singapore, older consumers prioritise Trust over Setting Trends.

Oath’s Brand Love Index brings a new perspective by unpacking the drivers of brand love, relevant in today’s landscape, universal (across age, gender, race and nationalities) and actionable. Quantitative and qualitative consumer research and analysis was completed in Q4 2017 to create Oath’s proprietary brand love score, which was applied to the BrandZ Database from WPP and Kantar Millward Brown, with a sample size of 159,600 across the US, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan and the UK.