Cadbury Dairy Milk maintains the position of Ireland’s most emotionally connected brand in 2023, extending its lead over competitor brands. The snack brand, which is owned by Mondelez, now has net positive emotional connection of +72, some 13 points ahead of its nearest competitor, Tayto, which scored +59 and third-placed Lidl with a score of +57.
An Post lands in fourth place, up +2 on last year.
A strong performance from Dunnes Stores sees them up +13, cracking the top 10 brands for the first time. Brennans Bread, a new entry, debuts in fifth position, while HB Magnum, Twix and McVitie’s Digestives biscuits all see improvements to secure top 10 positions. Home Store+More hangs in the top 10 brands despite a marginal decline on 2022.
The Red C study also shows that soft drinks brands Coca-Cola, Lucozade and Club Orange all make notable gains as well. While the industry may like to think that consumers think long and hard about every brand choice, the evidence suggests this simply is not the case. Instead, people tend to make fast “good enough” brand choices based on mental shortcuts.
Feelings
Behavioural and marketing scientists like Gerd Gigerenzer and the Ehrenberg Bass Institute have done extensive work in this area to prove that a brand that is mentally and physically available, easily recognised and evokes positive emotional feelings, is more likely to be chosen against one that is not. To deliver a winning brand, it is vital to get these right.
Red C’s Brand Reaction Index uses facial expressions as short cuts for emotions. A series of faces are presented to consumers and then a random selection of brands are shown one at a time. Each time a brand is shown the consumers are immediately asked to choose as quickly as possible the emotion they feel when they see that brand.
See the full report at https://redcresearch.ie/brand-reaction-index-2023/
