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Welcome to Stagwell Marketing Cloud x Harris Brand Platform monthly brand report.
Every month, we take brand data from Stagwell Marketing Cloud’s Harris Brand Platform, a real-time brand management software tool, and highlight the brands you should have on your radar.
Let’s dive in:
125 years of Pepsi.
What better way to celebrate than with a rebrand?
Pepsi went back into its archive to find inspiration for its new logo, a modernized version of their popular 1973 one.
But it wasn’t just a whim that led them to spruce up an old favorite—they took this cue from their customers. Before taking the plunge, Pepsi conducted consumer research to make sure the investment they were making in honor of 125 years would pay off.
What they found was that consumers really preferred to see the logo inside the globe on the can, not outside of it, and they also resonated with Pepsi’s ’70s and ’80s branding.
“The challenge was: How can we take something that was part of our heritage and our past and project it to the present and the future?” Todd Kaplan, Pepsi’s CMO, told USA Today.
So how successful was the rebrand? Customers were pro-retro in the focus groups—has that same enthusiasm transferred to the general public?
Let’s see what Catherine Ake, content strategist at Harris Brand Platform, found.
“Slide 4 in the above demo show Pepsi’s brand momentum from January through into October 2023. Momentum captures a brand’s ability to maintain market position in the face of competition from other brands. Pepsi’s momentum significantly rose throughout the summer and into the fall. At the beginning of June, Pepsi’s brand momentum stood at 32.0. By early September, momentum had reached 39.6 (+7.6). While the summer uptick in momentum may seem surprising, Pepsi had begun marketing their logo updates in March, well before the logo appeared on merchandise in August.
In addition to momentum growth, Pepsi also saw significant gains in consumers’ willingness to recommend the Pepsi brand to others. Among the general population of US adults, Pepsi started 2023 with a recommend score of 36.4, but this increased (+6.3) to reach a recommend score of 42.7 by the end of September. Recommend is the final stage of the sales conversion funnel, and the ultimate mark of customer satisfaction. Beyond purchasing Pepsi, these consumers are willing to actively promote Pepsi products to others. See Pepsi’s conversion funnel in Slide 3 of the demo.”
Consumer research is critical when launching a new look and feel.
Pepsi took the time to gauge how their customers would feel about different branding ideas to make sure they were on the right track—and it seems to have paid off. The classic American brand is experiencing a new wave of momentum following the rebrand.
Read the full Pepsi case study here.
When I hear the words “Red Bull,” an energy drink that gives me wings isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.
It’s Max Verstappen.
The 26-year-old Belgian Formula One driver has made quite a name for himself among the F1 community since he joined Red Bull Racing in 2016, winning a jaw-dropping 17 out of the 20 races that have happened so far this 2023 season.
Behind Verstappen, I associate Red Bull with other extreme athletes, like big wave surfers, cliff divers, and cyclists—and, of course, Red Bull Racing’s made-for-tv team principal Christian Horner.
Just this week, Horner told CNBC that Red Bull’s dominance on the track this season has led to increased consumption of Red Bull. “What we do for the Red Bull brand, for the energy drink, in advertising the product globally for 23 race weekends a year…we’re the biggest marketing impact that the beverage company has.”
And evidently, I’m not the only one whose affinity with the brand started with their investment in athletes. Ake from Harris Brand Platform dug into the numbers to see how sports fans view Red Bull compared to the general population of American adults. Let’s see what she found.
“Using Harris Brand Platform data, we compare Red Bull’s brand equity among US adults to Red Bull’s brand equity among fans of sports with a Red Bull team. For this report, we examined data from fans of F1 racing, NASCAR, soccer, and eSports. This comparison shows how associating Red Bull’s name with a popular sport positively influences viewers’ perception of the beverage brand.
Brand equity measures the value consumers see in a brand at a particular moment of time. It is an average of four components: brand familiarity, perceived quality, purchase consideration, and perceived momentum.
The chart below signals that Red Bull’s strategy is paying off. All components of Red Bull’s brand equity are higher among the sports fans than the general population. The power of positive association is raising Red Bull’s brand value within each group.”
It’s no coincidence that F1 fans view Red Bull’s momentum to be over 20 points higher than the average American—they’re watching one of the most dominant drivers of all time don Red Bull gear as he stands on the podium week after week.
Red Bull’s marketing investment is huge: It’s been estimated that Red Bull spends roughly 30% of its revenue on marketing. In comparison, Pepsi spent 2.5% of its revenue on marketing in 2020.
But Harris Brand Platform data shows the investment isn’t for naught.
Not only is Red Bull’s brand equity much higher across the board with sports fans, Red Bull is also much higher on the “consideration” scale for that group, meaning they are more likely to consider buying the product.
Read the full Red Bull case study here.
If you look up news related to White Claw, you’ll find an interesting variety of headlines.
“NY bus driver drinking on the job says she didn’t know White Claw had alcohol, is not facing charges”
“3-legged bear ‘Tripod’ steals and drinks White Claw seltzers in Florida home raid”
“Want to match your nails to your can of White Claw? Here’s how”
But if you dig a little deeper, you’ll learn that White Claw has been showing up at music festivals and events across the world this year. From BST to Electric Zoo and the Kentucky Derby, White Claw Shore Club puts on must-see concert sets and visual art installations—complete with their iconic flavored hard seltzer of course.
This growing investment in festivals is part of their aim to become every festival goers drink of choice.
Let’s see if their brand data from the first half of the year shows any difference in purchase consideration and momentum. Over to Ake from Harris Brand Platform to walk us through the data.
“Among alcohol drinkers, purchase consideration (+5.4) and brand momentum (+5.2) significantly rose from Q1 to Q2. This indicates that adults who typically consume alcoholic beverages were more likely to consider purchasing White Claw hard seltzer in Q2 than they had been during the first quarter of the year.
While reported usage climbs throughout Q1 and Q2 for both groups of consumers, reported usage among active alcohol drinkers is predictably higher. Active alcohol consumers’ reported White Claw usage stood at 34.7 at the beginning of January. This number rose (+6.2) and peaked in June at 40.9.”
Harris Brand Platform data shows that White Claw’s focus on festivals is paying off. By attracting customers in a fun, playful environment, White Claw can keep their brand (and their bubbly) top of mind.
