Media Now Represent A Fifth Of Americans' Most Indispensable Brands

by Joe Mandese , December 12, 2022

Media brands rank as nearly a fifth of America's most indispensable ones, including three new ones -- TikTok, Instagram and Spotify -- being added to this year's top 100 "most connected brands," according to an annual study released this morning by Opinium.

The study, based on in-depth interviews with 4,000 U.S. adults, also found that only five media brands -- Samsung, Netflix, Microsoft, Disney and Hulu -- slipped in their rankings vs. last year's, an indication that Americans are finding premium subscription streaming services a little more dispensable than they did a year ago.

Amazon and Google remained unchanged in the two top positions, respectively, while YouTube surged six positions to rank third, and Apple jumped nine positions to rank fourth.

But the biggest year-over-year mover was Twitter, which jumped 11 positions to rank as the 87th most-connected U.S. brand, amidst an overall improvement for social media networks, including Facebook, TikTok and Instagram.

Gaming platform brands Playstation, Nintendo and Xbox all improved their positions as well.

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2 comments about "Media Now Represent A Fifth Of Americans' Most Indispensable Brands".

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Dan C. from MS Entertainment, December 13, 2022 at 9:51 p.m.
The study refers to the "most connected brands." That doesn't mean "indispensable."

Some other flaws as well.

The methodology doesn't make sense for this "media study" which focused on 1. "favorite brands" (not media brands - but favorite brands) 2. Social media volicity which focused on "brand mentions in social media" and 3. Brand revenue.

Amazon, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft - all which are retail first, not media, and does not mean that if I like Amazon, it's because of its media offerings. These are all major brands in our lives whether we consume their media or not. How many people use and love Amazon and don't have Prime programming? AppleTV+ is a bomb and requires its hardware to deliver music or media. As far as "social media mentions, it goes to reason the biggest brands on the planet get the most "social media mentions" which all certainly are not about their media offerings.

Brand revenue = love or indispensable.
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Joe Mandese from MediaPost Inc., December 13, 2022 at 9:57 p.m.

@Dan Ciccone: Here's how Opinium explains its definition of indispensabity: "The Most Connected Brands in the US are those that have succeeded in becoming indispensable to consumers’ daily lives. In an era of expanding customer expectations and constant competitive disruption, the Most Connected Brands are the ones that continually find new ways to connect with consumers in order to thrive and grow."

Methodology

The central pillar running through the heart of Opinium’s approach is to identify the brands that matter most to consumers. Opinium developed the master brand list based on three data streams that speak to the different types of relationships that consumers have with a brand: (1) a nationally representative study of the nation’s top brands where consumers were invited to spontaneously recall their favorite brands, (2) social media velocity and brand mentions, (3) brand revenue.

Opinium’s nationally representative study surveyed 4,000 consumers. Based on their experience of evaluating brands via their Connected Brands Framework, they based the Most Connected Brands Index score on the four key measures that matter most to consumers: prominence, distinction, emotion, and dynamism.

To ensure that the index was statistically robust and proven to relate to what truly matters to consumers, Opinium ran correlation analysis to create the weights for the selected variables. The derived Most Connected Brands score is then calculated as a weighted average of these variables. These scores are then indexed on the average, providing a ranking of all the brands included in the study.