• by Les Luchter , Staff Writer, June 19, 2025

FutureBrand study suggests looking to companies like Samsung and Microsft as templates for change.

Top healthcare brands suffered a 10% decline in positive brand perception between 2022 and 2024, according to FutureBrand’s recently released “Healthcare 2025: New Models for Growth” report.

The analysis is an outgrowth of the firm’s FutureBrand Index, in which “we take the PWC Top 100 global brands by market capitalization, and rank them based on brand perception rather than financial strength,” Lynne Field, FutureBrand’s head of strategy, explains to Pharma & Health Insider. That new ranking is based on a QRI survey of over “3,000 informed professionals globally.”

Fifteen healthcare brands made the latest PWC list, and when FutureBrand reranked them, Danaher and Intuitive took the top two spots. If you’ve never heard of them, it might be because they’ve built their brand reputations primarily on selling medical devices and robotics respectively directly to the medical industry.

What are Danaher and Intuitive doing right? Chalk it up to a good balance between the nine “purpose” attributes and nine “experience” attributes measured by FutureBrand.

“The ideal model is brands who have a clearly defined purpose that they consistently pull through the everyday-lived experience,” making these brands “more likely for people to want to choose them, to pay more for them, to want to work for them,“ Field says.

While Field calls healthcare brands’ 10% decline in perception “alarming” and the report’s results a “wake-up call,” she notes that pharma brands actually gained year-over-year in such attributes as mission, inspiration and resource management on the purpose side, and in attachment (trust) on the experience side.

But most healthcare brands tend to be oriented too much to either the purpose side or experience side. .

Then there’s UnitedHealthGroup, which caused my eyebrows to rise by being ranked fourth in FutureBrands’ list (#3 was Abbvie).

I attributed this to FutureBrand’s research being done a full year ago -- before the extent of consumer dissatisfaction with UHG became evident (and prior to the assassination of a top executive).  New data is being compiled this month, with another  FutureBrand Index due in the fall.

Who can healthcare brands turn to as models for improving positive brand perception by balancing purpose and experience?

FutureBrand cites three types of approaches exemplified by such non-healthcare brands as Samsung, Microsoft and Mastercard.

The Personal Innovator. (e.g., Samsung) These brands score 16 points higher than the healthcare average on such attributes as “attachment, the ability to connect with people on a deeper level, becoming not only a part of their everyday lives but a brand people depend on to solve real needs.”

The Credible Visionary. (e.g., Microsoft) These brands “lead the way. They’re futurists who don’t just dream, but credibly and authentically deliver against their mission. These brands highlight their dedication to creating a meaningful impact in the world” and score 12 points higher than the healthcare average on all purpose attributes.

The Immersive Experience. (e.g., Mastercard). These brands “know who they are and have a story to share. Their distinctive and individual personalities turn mundane interactions into sensorial experiences.”  Demonstrating “their unique ability to inject gratification throughout the journey,” these brands “outperform the healthcare average by 18 points on the pleasure attribute.”

Or healthcare brands could just turn the clock back three years.

In 2022, these brands were doing really well on the heels of the pandemic, Field notes, as what had been their traditional focus around product and innovation had shifted to include an equal focus on experience. The report cites healthcare brands providing “a running commentary on the pandemic” and “hospital workers becoming heroes….Brand perception became a matter of public health.

 “A very nice halo effect happened, where all the purpose and experience scores spiked,” Field explains. “This was really an opportunity for healthcare brands to lead into this new value…that they were contributing to society. But rather than accept that as the new foundation and grow on it, we’re seeing retraction.”

Since the pandemic, the report says, public attention has “shifted to pricing, access and data privacy, and a wave of new disruptors, from telehealth platforms to direct-to-consumer pharma and AI-powered diagnostics, started to rewrite the rules of engagement. Today, trust is more fragile, expectations are higher and the pace of innovation shows no sign of slowing.“

As a final note, Field sums up: “It’s’ really time for brands to think differently about the value that they’re providing, not being tempted to fall back into yesterday’s playbook when the rules have changed.”