MBLM Reveals Women Connect with Broad and More Mature Staple of Brands than Men

MBLM, the Brand Intimacy Agency focused on strategy, design, creative and technology, revealed that women connect with a broad and more mature staple of brands that involve more aspects of their daily lives than men. Apple is the most intimate brand for women, according to the agency’s extensive Brand Intimacy 2015 Report. Brand intimacy describes an essential relationship between a person and brand that transcends usage, purchase and loyalty. According to the report, intimate brands create enhanced business performance.

The top five for women is rounded out by: Disney, Amazon, Whole Foods and Toyota. Comparatively, the top five brands for men are Harley-Davidson, Apple, Toyota, Nintendo and Lexus.

“Interestingly, we found that brand intimacy is very similar for both men and women,” stated Rina Plapler, partner at MBLM. “How people form bonds with brands transcends gender; it is universal. But it is also important to see the types of brands women tend to connect with and how age and income influence brand choices. This information will help marketers better promote their products and services and form deep brand attachments. ”

Additional findings of the report include:

• Women have a slight increase over men in technology & telecom and retail in terms of forming intimate relationships.
• Surprisingly, in a category where men dominate like technology, women form stronger bonds across the category and with Apple and Facebook in particular.
• Age also determines women’s brand preference and bonds. For millennials, women ages 18-34, retail is the dominant brand, while women 35-54 years old have connections with a more diverse list, with only one retail brand.
• Income also plays a role; women making $34K-49K are most intimate with health & beauty brands, with the top five being Coca-Cola, L’Oréal, Walmart, Revlon and Dove ; those with incomes of $50K-75K have a diverse list, including Apple Starbucks, Olay, Coca-Cola and Netflix; and for women making 75K-150K, it is Apple, Sephora, Amazon, Target and Clinique.

MBLM’s 2015 report contains one of the most comprehensive rankings of brands based on emotion, analyzing the responses of 6,000 consumers and 52,000 brand evaluations across nine industries in the U.S., Mexico and UAE. MBLM’s reports and interactive Brand Ranking Tool showcase the performance of almost 400 brands, revealing the characteristics and intensity of the consumer bonds.

To download the full Brand Intimacy 2015 Report or explore the Ranking Tool please visit: http://mblm.com/lab/brandintimacy-study.