• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 7, 2021

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) this morning released the first in a regular series of monthly reports ranking the top brands in terms of their "ESG," or environmental, social and corporate governance. The index, developed with data science platform Swayable, is derived from a survey of 15,000 adults who are asked to score brands based on their familiarity, purchase intent, environmental and social impact, and level of trust in brand governance.

The initial monthly index shows that based on these criteria, Welch's is the most ESG brand, followed by Campbell Soup, Hershey's, Oreo and Lysol.

The research is interesting, because a wide variety of industry organizations have sought to measure and rank brands on an equally wide variety of attributes representing extrinsic societal values that go beyond the core intrinsic ones comprising a brand (product, service, etc.).

In recent weeks, two of those studies were released, including Havas' every-other-year "Meaningful Brands" ranking, and a new one from Hall and Partners and Wolff Olins ranking the world's most "conscious" brands -- ones that are "responsive to people’s needs, moods and culture and takes responsibility by helping people, communities and the planet."

While there are a few overlaps among these studies, they utilize different methods, criteria and samples, so they're not exactly apples to oranges. Havas' is global. Hall and Partners is multinational (U.S., U.K. and China). The ANA's is American.

While direct comparisons of the explicit rankings may or may not be relevant, it is worth noting that the ad industry is striving to understand the the broader societal impact brands have on their consumers.