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Brands that spark instant recognition and emotional warmth aren’t just admired, they’re measurably more valuable. That’s the message from new research by Kantar, which finds that in an era defined by AI, short-form video and fragmented media consumption, the brands most likely to win are those that forge fast, intuitive connections with consumers.
Kantar’s latest BrandImprint analysis applies techniques from cognitive psychology and system-1 thinking to gauge how quickly people identify a brand’s assets and link them to the brand itself. The approach builds on the firm’s long-running “Meaningful, Different, Salient” (MDS) framework, adding new neuroscience-driven insights about how emotion and intuition shape brand equity.