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The “Good Brands Index” Reveals How Brands with Purpose, Personality and Performance Experience Marketplace Success

Agency News | October 23, 2019 | 3 min read

Advertising agency Preston Kelly launched annual study as part of new “Good Wins” positioning.

The results are in! As part of its “Good Wins” agency repositioning this year, Preston Kelly commissioned a nationwide, quantitative study called the Good Brands Index to better understand how consumers themselves define a “good brand,” how they judge one brand versus another, and what actually matters most to them when making purchase decisions.

“There’s been a lot of discussion around the benefits of purpose-driven brands, but we wanted to take it a step further and really prove that brands that work, feel and do good are winning,” said Jennifer Spire, Partner and CEO of Preston Kelly. “As a result of the Good Brands Index, we were able to confirm our hypothesis that a good brand carves out an ownable place in consumers’ hearts based on what they value most.”

The Good Brands Index is now available as a tool for Preston Kelly clients to rank and evaluate their brand and develop a marketing strategy based on what matters most to each brand’s target audience. To do this, they will measure dozens of attributes focused around performance, personality and purpose to determine the brand’s overall level of goodness. The metrics are seemingly simple: Does a brand work good? That’s performance. Does it feel good? That’s personality. Does it do good? That part is purpose.

“The power of this tool is the ability to pinpoint exactly what it is a brand is doing that resonates with consumers, and what doesn’t,” said Chris Preston, Creative Director and EVP, Preston Kelly. “That can shape not only how a brand communicates, but how it operates in order to really connect to the people it serves.”

In addition to the tool, the Good Brands Index exposed a number of valuable insights.

• Let people see the good you do. Being a preferred brand is not just about price, quality and reliability. Those attributes are vital table-stakes, but not a differentiating platform to build a good brand on. Being trustworthy, ethical and transparent are more important now than ever.

• The definition of good can vary. Being a good brand matters, but “good” means different things to different audiences in different categories. Understanding how “good” is defined at key moments in a customer journey is key to moving them to act.

• Performance and purpose are most important to consumers overall. Their influence in impacting decision making varies based on category. For instance, performance will generally top purpose for a technology company, and purpose will top performance for a service-based organization. Interestingly automotive, is where good matters most.

Preston Kelly’s purpose is to make brands positively matter by creating experiences so meaningful they are welcome in people’s lives. This philosophy, centered on the core belief that “Good Wins,” fuels the agency’s desire to promote purpose-driven companies and give positive rocket fuel to good brands. It shapes the internal culture, fostering courage, openness, originality and positivity.

“Preston Kelly wants to let it be known that through our marketing we stand for lifting up companies and helping people and brands do more good for their audiences and the world,” said Spire.

The study was conducted through a national online panel of 1,006 adults 18 and older.