• by Aaron Baar , February 16, 2016

Editor's note: This week, Marketing Daily brings you exclusive coverage of the Brand Keys 2016 Customer Loyalty Engagement Index (CLEI). Each day, expect a report on key product/services categories from among the 72 surveyed for this year’s study, including automotive, electronics, retail, technology and alcoholic beverages. This second installment provides highlights from categories including electronics, telecommunication and entertainment.

When it comes to consumer electronics, telecommunications and entertainment, the categories are maturing, meaning fewer big jumps when it comes to loyalty and engagement, and a much more steady state for the sector. 

The top performers for those sectors remain pretty much the same that they have for the past two years, according to the most recent Consumer Loyalty and Engagement Index. Apple and Samsung top the smartphone and tablet categories, for instance, while rankings among wireless providers (where AT&T reigns supreme) remain unchanged again this year. 

“Wireless has been upping its game, but it all ends up being about the connections [consumers] want to make,” Brand Keys president Robert Passikoff tells Marketing Daily. “Once it gets harder and harder to make a case on the added value or differentiation of product, you have to make the appeals on the emotional side. The reason AT&T does as well as it does in its outreach is that it's tailoring programs to your needs.”

While other categories saw some smaller moves (LG and Sharp moved up among flat-screen TV makers, as Sony and Panasonic moved down), the majority of the categories also remained relatively steady. 

“The brands that have survived this far have figured out how to do the basic stuff okay,” Passikoff says. “It’s become a more personal shift [for consumers] to what I can do with a device, and what I can get from it.”

However, emerging entertainment categories saw (and will likely continue to see) some disruption, particularly when it comes to online music and streaming video. In the music category, Pandora and iTunes stood atop the list, while Spotify dropped from number 2 to number 5 (tied with Amazon Prime and Google Play). Other one-time players such as Yahoo Music, Napster and MySpace failed to make the list. 

Among streaming video, Netflix and Amazon are not surprisingly on top, but YouTube made a big jump from number eight to number three, just ahead of Hulu (#4) and iTunes (#5). None of the major network or telecommunications providers made the list either, which could prove detrimental as the category matures, Passikoff says. 

“It’s already a problem for these networks,” he says. “People use brands to organize categories, and if they’re not thinking about you they’re thinking about someone else.”

Here are the top three in the consumer electronics, telecommunications and entertainment categories for the 2016 Consumer Engagement and Loyalty Index:

Smartphone

Apple

Samsung

LG

Wireless

AT&T 

Verizon

T-Mobile

Tablets

Apple

Samsung

Amazon/Asus

Flat-Screen TV

Samsung

LG/Sharp

Sony

Headphones

Beats

Sony

Bose

App-base Ride Share

Lyft

Uber

Get around

Laptops

Apple

Asus

Samsung/Acer

Instant Messaging

WhatsApp

Facebook Messenger

SnapChat

Online Payments

Paypal

Stripe

Google Wallet/Amazon Payments

Search Engine

Google

Bing

Yahoo

Social Networking

Facebook

YouTube/Pinterest

LinkedIn

Online Music

Pandora

iTunes

iheartradio

Online Video

Netflix

Amazon

YouTube

Ticketing Services

Ticketmaster

Stub hub

Vivid Seats

Video Games

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3

Fallout 4

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