• by Aaron Baar , June 23, 2010

If engagement with consumers is the next wave of marketing, 10 companies are doing a particularly good job of it, according to brand and communications research agency Hall & Partners.

In conjunction with a new tool that measures consumer brand engagement on an emotional level, the Omnicom-owned company determined the 10 most engaging brands in the U.S. Among them: technology companies such as Ebay, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook and packaged goods companies Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Dove and Kraft Foods.

"It's not surprising the technology brands are higher up on the list," Vanella Jackson, worldwide CEO of Hall & Partners, tells Marketing Daily. "There's a strong personal relationship with that experience."

The same goes for the packaged goods companies on the list. Coca-Cola and Pepsi have employed many marketing tactics over the years to build strong brand communities, using everything from experiential marketing to forays into social media, Jackson says. Similarly, Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty has done the same. "It's a part of people feeling close," she says. "I think Dove has done well online in contributing to a community."

And while Kraft may be initially surprising as a brand with high consumer engagement, the company's recent efforts to broaden its image "beyond the refrigerator" -- particularly with newer tactics like an iPhone application that supplies recipes -- seem to be paying off, she says.

Hall & Partners created its new tool, Engager, as a way to measure the entire field of the consumer-brand relationship, from unconscious awareness all the way through to purchase. "It's not the fact that we have more tools at our disposal," Jackson says. "We know a lot more about communications and brands these days and how people respond to them."

Marketers looking to build engagement with consumers would be wise to follow the approaches of these companies in building and nurturing a brand community, Jackson says. "It's more about understanding the social emotion around the brand and using all the tactics and tools available to building that relationship," she says.

According to the company, the 10 most engaging brands in the U.S. are (in order): 1. EBay 2. Google 3. Amazon 4. Kraft Foods 5. Microsoft 6. Facebook 7. Coca-Cola 8. Pepsi 9. Yahoo 10. Dove