Millward Brown, the WPP-owned marketing research company, is charting the complex relationship between desire and value with the latest release of its Value-D scores, a quantitative look at the question “I want it, but can I afford it?”
This week the firm released Value-D: Balancing Desire and Price for Brand Success, its annual global index that evaluates more than 7,000 brands on how highly they’re desired versus how pricey consumers perceive them to be. Brands that are widely in demand and seen as affordable score best, while low desire or high perceived price can drive the overall “Value-D” score down.
“We discover that price alone is not paramount, even among today’s frugal consumers,” the report said. “Rather, brand has increased in importance relative to other purchase drivers such as price, location, convenience and habit.
“On average worldwide, only 7% of consumers buy on price alone, down from 20% years ago. In stark contrast, 81% regard brand as an important purchase driver.”
Among the study’s 4,000 Canadian participants, Maxwell House had the highest Value-D score at 127, followed by two Nestle products – Pure Life water (124) and Nescafe (118).
Top 10 Canadian Value-D brands
1. Maxwell House
2. Nestle Pure Life
3. Nescafe
4. Subway
5. McDonalds
6. TD Canada Trust
7. Coors Light
8. Real Canadian Superstores
9. Aquafina
10. Budweiser
Globally, the study found online retailer Amazon had the best desire-price balance with a Value-D score of 146, followed by Colgate (133) and Nokia (128).
Top 10 global Value-D brands
1. Amazon
2. Colgate
3. Nokia
4. Pampers
5. Visa
6. Coca Cola
7. Microsoft
8. McDonalds
9. Nescafe
10. Lidl
A summary of the full report – which includes scores for the U.S. market, methodology details and separate desire and price rankings – is available for download here.
