• by Aaron Baar , April 25, 2017

Among consumer packaged goods, it helps to have been around awhile to be considered engaging. 

According to the latest Landor Pulse analysis of CPG companies, nine of the top 10 most engaging brands are those that are pretty established and very familiar to many consumers. Among the top brand were stalwarts such as: Johnson & Johnson, Betty Crocker, Dove, and Olay. The only twenty-first century brand to make the list is Plum Organics, a baby food brand founded in 2007. 

“Many people may assume that established CPG brands that have been around long before the age of social media are lagging behind, but the results of the survey indicate that not only are they keeping up, they are doing a better job than contemporary brands born into this era,” says Mary Zalla, Landor’s global president of consumer brands.

The Pulse study from the branding and design consultancy uses data from the 2016 Brand Asset Valuator (a database of consumer brand perception), looking specifically at four attributes: cares for customers, trustworthy, social and helpful. It should not be surprising, given those attributes, that brands that have become household names scored the best, Zalla says. 

“The fact that they’re so established links to trustworthy,” she tells Marketing Daily. “These are mainstay, day-in, day-out brands. We know that these brands over index for helpfulness.”

For those brands that haven’t been around for generations to build such trustworthiness, focusing on some of the other attributes may help, particularly being social and caring for customers, Zalla says.

“I think a lot of these established brands are doing a good job across all those [social platforms,” she says. 

The complete list of top 10 most engaging CPG brands were: Betty Crocker, Burt’s Bees, Dove, Gerber, Johnson& Johnson, Olay, Pillsbury, Plum Organics, Trader Joe’s and Weight Watchers.