Media and politics polarize, brands connect!?

Why brands will still be important tomorrow and why they need research for this.

While media and politics polarize, brands can unite society. In the 1st issue of 2024 of "planning & analysis" with a focus on "Brands," Jens Lönneker writes about the integrative importance of brands in a society whose collective self-image is shaken. Here you can find his article "The Connecting" in full. Alternatively in the E-Zine.

In brand models, the differentiating power of brands is predominantly in the foreground. In view of an increasingly polarized world, Jens Lönneker focuses on the connecting side of brands. Research and marketing should recognize and name these connecting moments in their potential.

Brands should, as the name suggests, mark.

In order to do this, they must stand out from their environment and make a difference. When developing strategies for brands, emphasis is therefore usually placed on the differentiating potential of brands. In most brand models, aspects such as uniqueness, degree of substitutability, and USP are in focus. The research of insights and the awarding of benefits should enable this differentiation. Here, an attempt should be made to understand the meaning of brands differently.

The focus should therefore be on their connecting side - a mostly little-noticed dimension.

It is indeed somehow recorded under aspects of brand status with parameters such as awareness, household penetration, or buyer reach, but mostly not understood as an own quality. The hypothesis: brands did not have to put the connecting quality in the foreground so far, because in the western societies a connecting communal social platform existed over decades. There was a fundamental social consensus that was controversially discussed again and again, but not questioned.

However, this certainty is no longer easily given today. The concentrated force of major challenges such as climate change, migration, inflation, pandemics, war in Europe created a breeding ground for both nationalist, populist ideas and for new conflict arenas in the classic democratic camp: What should be regulated and forbidden, who belongs to it? The social consensus has thus become more fragile, commonalities are less self-evident.

The search for unifying social forces

Politics and media are increasingly denied unifying and connecting qualities. There are various studies on this phenomenon: The Edelman Trust Barometer, for which 32,000 people worldwide were surveyed in 2022, asked about separating and unifying social forces and reported for its Germany report. According to this, government and media in this country are attributed more separating than unifying forces - for the business world and the NGOs it is the other way around.

Especially the brands seem to score in this context:

In the trust ranking of ServiceValue, the top brands achieved high trust values of 85 percent upwards in 2021. More than half a million customer ratings for approximately 1,800 companies were taken into account. Media and politics, on the other hand, are struggling with trust crises. This is shown by our study "Media between respect and ostracism". According to this, one in four people in Germany develops a very critical attitude towards the established media. Most of them feel abandoned by the system and politics. In eastern Germany, media aversion is particularly high and encompasses up to 40 percent of the population there. That is very worrying.

Because a functioning democracy, according to important media researchers such as Jürgen Habermas, requires a broad acceptance of the major mass media. The credibility of politics has also been weak for years. In a study by the Heinz Lohmann Foundation "Public opinion in crisis - a depth psychological study" from 2015, politicians received the worst evaluation in comparison with other groups when the keyword "credibility" was mentioned. In contrast, categories such as "experts", "affected", "NGOs", "scientists from institutions" received high scores (70+).

After the values for politics had initially clearly improved around the Corona crisis, a Forsa survey conducted at the end of 2023 determined dramatically decreased values again: Only 20 percent of those surveyed have great trust in the Federal Chancellor and only 21 percent in the Federal Government after values of +60 percent in 2020.

Brands can develop connecting qualities

Against this background, fields that create connecting social qualities become very important. Brands have - for a long time - such qualities. Of course, reality is more complex.

Media can also be brands, but do not have the same tasks as brands and companies from other areas. Nevertheless, the question remains why the top brands and companies from all possible areas apparently enjoy more trust than the media. It therefore makes sense to take a closer look at the connecting qualities of brands.

Various agencies and institutes have developed approaches to determine the strength of brands: BrandZ from Kantar tries to calculate the share of the brand in the financial success of a company. Interbrand identifies the Best Global Brands. The GfK, with its partners such as the Markenverband, uses the economic market success and the attractiveness of the brand from the consumer's point of view to determine the Best Brands. The top brands determined for Germany must inevitably appeal to a broad audience successfully - otherwise they would not be in the top positions.

But what hypotheses can be derived from the rankings for the connecting social qualities of brands?

The BrandZ monitor from 2023 identifies two technology brands in the top two positions for Germany: Telekom and SAP. "Experience what connects," has been the explicit claim of Telekom for years. And in business, SAP sets the standards of cooperation in commercial organization in this country. The success of the two brands can also be interpreted as them developing strong, connecting qualities. Internationally, brands such as Apple, Google or Microsoft can also be assigned such characteristics. Last, but not least, the success of the DHL brand could also be psychologically classified here.

Research needs space to create added value

However, brands apparently do not necessarily have to directly put the connecting in the foreground to score with it. Even if many people agree that they consider something desirable, community can form: The brands Mercedes-Benz and BMW are found in Germany at BrandZ in places three and four. Other reputable automobile brands are also on top places in Germany. Internationally, however, only Tesla is in the Top 50 - an indication that other products are becoming more desirable? This is supported by the fact that the luxury brand providers Louis Vuitton and Hermès have climbed significantly in the ranking. With Siemens and Bosch, there are also two brands in the German top ten of BrandZ that stand for reliable products in the technological infrastructure. Their offerings include both the application in business enterprises and in the private domestic space. Bosch was also awarded at the Best Brands. In the desire for guarantors for a reliable technological infrastructure, many people seem to feel commonalities. The brands Aldi and Lidl have been scoring for years with the fact that practically the whole nation buys at these discounters. The philosophy of "Less is more" is consistently implemented here. And the interest in cheap prices unites the Germans, leads to fantastic buyer reach. Also the top-rated brands Adidas and Nivea are omnipresent in social everyday life. They embody products that are widely accepted. Products with which you can not go wrong and thereby create social commonality in everyday events.

Society is becoming increasingly polarized

The connecting of brands is an asset that is gaining in importance in view of changing polarizing social framework conditions. Market research can contribute such new perspectives by taking a creative look at the data and thus "seeing" something. With its data and insights, it "challenges" the brand management, so that it can work on the added value of the brands. All data that has been used in this article is publicly available. There is a huge pool of research findings that can be used by brand-leading companies - increasingly also AI-supported.

However, research also needs its space to develop this added value for brands. If it becomes a pure supplier that delivers data as cheaply as possible - but should not think about it further, the potential for brand development is wasted. Hermann Hesse said: "Searching means: having a goal. Finding, however, means: being free, being open, not having a goal." Accordingly, one should let research "find" more and not just "search". Because a seeker does not see some things that are close in front of him - such as the famous glasses on his nose.

Research needs spaces to "see" for brands

Research also needs space to develop added value for brands. If it becomes a pure supplier that delivers data as cheaply as possible - but should not think about it further, the potential for brand development is wasted.