Brands still failing at value exchange: Edelman

Brands share mainly out of the profit motive rather than any sincere commitment to customers. They mostly fail to respond in a timely manner to complaints and concerns. They don't do a good enough job communicating about how products are sourced and made. And they largely lack any core purpose or desire to better society.

So finds Edelman's second-annual Brandshare study, which surveyed 15,000 people in 12 countries including four in Asia-Pacific (Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, UK and US). The 30-minute online survey asked a series of questions about 199 specific brands (a mix of multinationals and local outfits) across 11 industry sectors. The findings presented here are averages.  

Other key findings include:

• More than half (54 per cent) of those surveyed in Australia, China, India and Japan consider relationships with brands to be one-sided with limited value
• A majority (60 per cent) believe the only reason brands share with them is a self-centered desire to increase profits
• Australia’s consumers showed the highest dissatisfaction among the 12 countries surveyed with the current value exchange (79 per cent)
• 86 per cent of people across the four markets in APAC want meaningful interactions with brands, but only 19 percent think brands do it well.

Edelman argues that brands have to think beyond rational and emotional needs and strive to meet societal needs as well. Satisfying all three sets of needs has a quantifiable impact: a "compound lift" for consumer actions such as purchase (7 per cent), defend (9 per cent), recommend (11 per cent), sharing personal information (9 per cent) and sharing branded content (9 per cent), according to the company.

The following table compares the global averages with country-specific APAC findings that Edelman shared with Campaign Asia-Pacific.