OVERVIEW

  • The beverage industry consists of a diverse array of products, including health drinks, sodas and spirits. 
  • The category ranks 9th out of the 15 industries surveyed
  • Indulgence is the most prominent Brand Intimacy archetype for the beverage industry

From a Brand Intimacy perspective, the beverage industry has considerable room for improvement. It is 9th out of 15 industries and its top performing brand is Coca-Cola, which ranks 24th overall, down slightly from the previous year. 

Coca-Cola is the most intimate beverage brand by a wide margin

One brand that has improved its Brand Intimacy performance is Red Bull. The brand improved its ranking, moving from 108 to 89 and advancing its quotient score from 22.1 to 25.7. Red Bull has elevated its score in every archetype this year (patterns or markers that are consistently present, in part or in whole, among intimate brands that identify the character and nature of ultimate brand relationships), especially identity and ritual, two archetypes that are not particularly strong  in the beverage category. In terms of stages, which identify the depth and degree of intensity in the relationship between consumer and brand, Red Bull improved in the number of users in the bonding and fusing stages. Impressively, fusing rose from 2 percent in 2017 to 5 percent in 2018. In fact, Red Bull leads the category for percentage of users in the fusing stage. The brand’s Net Promoter Score also improved, as did the willingness of its users to pay 20 percent more for its products. All this brings Red Bull up to #5 in the industry this year, two positions up from 2017.

Red Bull snapshot 

Interestingly, from a Brand Intimacy perspective, these findings are akin to a brand in the automotive industry: Harley Davidson. Like Red Bull, the motorcycle manufacturer has a high fusing score, a high identity score for its industry, and a high score in an archetype that is one of the weakest for its industry overall (indulgence). As the beverage industry attempts to improve its performance, it’s clear that Red Bull has cultivated a strong profile relative to its competitors.

Read our detailed methodology here, and review the sources cited in this article here.

To learn more about MBLM, click here.

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