Jim Stengel, Procter&Gamble Global Marketing Director, wondered what makes a company memorable and at the same time profitable and came to the conclusion that the best global brands change people’s lives and are based on high ideals after studying 50,000 brands in more than 30 countries and by more than 28 different categories in the course of 10 years. Stengel created a list of the best brands that largely meet the ideal and know how to relate to the expectations, emotions, ideas and values of their clients through by analysing financial results, commitment levels, loyalty and recommendations by consumers. His research showed that brands with a mission and an ideal that brings together its customers and the society are 400 % more likely to be successful than those that are not. It not what product or service people buy but what cause, motive or idea people support. The ideals of the brands listed by Stengel and his research team, apart from being based on the values related to altruism and social responsibility, embody true and essential values of human life that inspire feelings, thoughts, attitudes and behaviours towards these brands on the part of their stakeholders helping building stronger brands. In this case, companies need to understand that their culture is unique and constitutes a key competitive advantage: companies act and are perceived in accordance with how they feel and what they think. The example of Zappo’s, a footwear brand, whose ideal is the delivery of happiness, helps to underscore ten key values to take into account, as for example, “embrace and drive change” or “be humble”. Differentiation is increasingly important for brands, understanding what human ideal is close to the brand. Regarding this aspect, there are five features that should guide companies in managing their respective brands: deliver an experience of happiness to people, connect people with outer world, explore new horizons with them, develop confidence and generate a positive influence on the society. In order to achieve the desired result, brands should follow 5 steps (discover, build, communicate, deliver and evaluate) to ensure that their beliefs and values are shared and perceived by different stakeholders and to implement and activate the idea that makes the brand meaningful. Life is ever changing and that is why companies fight to be innovative, innovation becomes a representation, implementation and execution of new ways of approaching their ideals by providing solutions through products and services. Changing people’s lives and become meaningful brands by doing so are the challenge that brands are facing today.

1. Jim Stengel, Procter&Gamble Global Marketing
Director, came to this conclusion after studying
50,000 brands in more than 30 countries and by
more than 28 different categories in the course of
10 years. However, these ideals, have to be con-
sistent with the values appreciated by people and
especially by the society in general. By doing this,
the brands manage to make people happy and help
them to explore new horizons.
In the universe of brands chosen for the research
sample, 50 brands (1 per thousand brands of
the research) form the model which correlates
financial results, commitment levels, loyalty and
recommendations by consumers to create a list
of the best brands that largely meet the ideal and
know how to relate to the expectations, emotions,
ideas and values of their clients.
Stengel compared financial performance of these
50 brands with Standard & Poor’s 500 over the
same period of time, between 2001 and 2011.
Results of the comparison are breath-taking: the
former demonstrate 400 times higher economic
results than the latter, meaning that brands with
a mission and an ideal that brings together its
customers and the society are 400 % more likely to
be successful than those that are not.
The key is not what people buy (what product,
what service or what novelty), but what people
support (what cause, what motive and what
ideal). This makes the ideal possible, shared, and
by this virtue – supported, tangibilised and, yes,
expressed in the form of an innovation. Thus a
brand is a mental representation, and at the same
time the heart of a social idea maintained and
supported by a business or an economic activity.
50 Ideal Brands
Jim Stengel worked jointly with the market and brand
consultancy Millward Brown and developed this list
with the help of the Optimor methodology which
includes companies operating in the consumer and
manufacturing sectors with the turnover between 100
mn and 100,000 mn dollars and where brand accounts
for at least 30 % of its value.
Apple, Mercedes, Disney, Heineken or Procter&Gamble – what makes these
companies so memorable and at the same time profitable? Is it their innovative
products? The investments in advertising? Or the extraordinary human talent
that they hire? The best global brands change people’s lives and are based on
high ideals.
Strategy Documents
I41/2013
How Brand Ideal Helps
to Achieve High Growth
Rate and Financial
Success
Brand
Insights

2. Insights 2
How Brand Ideal
Helps to Achieve
High Growth Rate
and Financial Success
“Thus a brand
is a mental
representation,
and at the
same time
the heart of
a social idea
maintained
and supported
by a business
or an
economic
activity”
The research team, apart from Stengel, included
Professor Sanjay Soody, MBA students of UCLA
(University of California, Los Angeles) and its
business school, the Anderson Graduate School
of Management.
The 50 brands include Accenture, Airtel, Amazon,
Apple,Aquarel,BlackBerry,CalvinKlein,Chipotle,
Coca-Cola, Diesel, Discovery Communications,
Dove, Emirates, FedEx, Google, Heineken,
Hennessy, Hermès, HP, Hugo Boss, IBM, Innocent,
Jack Daniel’s, Johnnie Walker, Lindt, L’Occitane,
Louis Vuitton, MasterCard, Mercedes-Benz,
Method, Möet&Chandon, Natura, Pampers,
Petrobras, RakutenIchiba, Red Bull, Royal Canin,
Samsung, Sedmoy Kontinent, Sensodyne,
Seventh Generation, Snow, Starbucks, Stonyfield
Farm, Tsingtao, Vente-Privée, Visa, Wegmans,
Zappo’s and Zara.
The ideals of these brands, apart from being
based on the values related to altruism and
social responsibility, embody true and essential
values of human life, such as the pleasure of life
(Louis Vuitton), the connection between body
and mind (Red Bull) and childcare (Pampers).
These ideals inspire and bring to life feelings,
thoughts, attitudes and behaviours towards
these brands on the part of their stakeholders,
and not only their customers. This makes them
so extraordinarily strong, enabling to surpass the
results of their competitors three-fold.
Differentiation Is Based on Ideas
Ideas are basically the body of brand culture
and corporate culture. Companies act and are
perceived in accordance with how they feel and
what they think. That is why Stengel believes
that corporate culture is unique and constitutes a
key competitive advantage. Out of the 50 brands
on the list, Zappo’s (name derived from zapatos,
the Spanish word for shoes) stands out due to
its distinctive business culture that explains the
company’s success in the sector of Internet sales
of footgear from its head office in Nevada, USA.
Zappo’s brand ideal is delivery of happiness. This
ideal is applied to all elements and contact points
with the company: the boxes where shoes are
stored, the offices where customers are served
and even the T-shirts worn by the employees. The
key is happiness of the stakeholder: the customer,
the employee, the salesperson, the environment
or the society. Everything that Zappo’s do, the
way they do it, who they do it with, contribute to
this idea of happiness.
The company does all this by taking into account
10 key values of the organisation:
1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships
With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble
Graph 1: BrandZTM
Strong Brands Portfolio vs. SP 500 (Apr 2006 – May 2012)
Source: Bloomberg, Millward Brown Optimor.
60%
40%
20%
0%
–20%
–40%
–60%
Apr 06 Apr 07 Apr 12Apr 08 Apr 09 Apr 10 Apr 11Aug 06 Aug 07 Aug 08 Aug 09 Aug 10 Aug 11Dec 06 Dec 07 Dec 08 Dec 09 Dec 10 Dec 11
37,5%
0,4%
BrandZTM
Portfolio
SP 500
The brands included in the BrandZ Top 100 Portfolio are those where brand contributes more than
30 percent of earnings.

3. Insights 3
How Brand Ideal
Helps to Achieve
High Growth Rate
and Financial Success
“The ideals
of these
brands, apart
from being
based on the
values related
to altruism
and social
responsibility,
embody true
and essential
values of
human life”
quo and embrace the change.
These five features should guide companies
in managing their respective brands. The
management should be structured as a working
programme aiming to develop and implement
these principles, thus enabling to translate brand
idea into real value.
More specifically, in order to achieve this result,
brands should follow a road map, to ensure that
their beliefs and values are shared and perceived
by different stakeholders thus achieving points
of difference (the emotional and rational benefits
offered by the brand) and avoiding points of
parity –those leading to erosion of competitive
advantage.
The programme should include 5 fundamental
parts –5 steps that should be taken in succession
in order to implement and activate the idea that
makes the brand meaningful:
1. Discover: an ideal in one of the fields
of fundamental human values.
2. Build: brand culture is rooted in
the ideal and chosen value.
Thus differentiation is increasingly important
for brands in terms of their central idea, their
promise as a brand, the mix of inspiration and a
tool for taking decisions, for knowing whether
the company is moving in the right direction. It
is important to understand what human ideal
is close to the brand: the joy of living, the pride
of being a member, the desire to improve the
world or the need to communicate with other
people? According with the recent findings of the
neuroscience, these are the four large categories
that incorporate all human needs and values.
5 features of an ideal
1. Deliver an experience of happiness to people:
encourage them and make them feel at home.
2. Connect people with outer world: make them
feel part of something bigger and greater.
3. Explore new horizons with them: take them
out, and discover yet unknown paths.
4. Develop confidence and stamina:
help them explore their inner
strength and build confidence.
5. Generate a positive influence on the
society: help them challenge the status
Graph 2: The Ideal Tree
Source: Jim Stengel, 2012.
BUILD
your culture
around your
ideal
COMMUNICATE
your ideal to engage
employees and
customers
DELIVER
a near-ideal
customer
experience
EVALUATE
your progress and
people against your
ideal
DISCOVER
an ideal is one of five
fields of fundamental
human values
POINTS OF
DIFFERENCE
(emotional and
rational benefits)
POINTS OF
PARITY
(eliminates a
competitive
advantage)
THE IDEAL
(the higher
order benefit the
brand gives to
the world)
BELIEFS
(the core beliefs of the
brand, usually from its
heritage)
The people the brand serves:
• Be choiceful
• Be sure the group is large enough to meet your goals
SHARED VALUES
(what values the
brand shares with the
people it serves)

4. Insights 4
How Brand Ideal
Helps to Achieve
High Growth Rate
and Financial Success
3. Communicate: first, with the employees,
and then with the customers.
4. Deliver: brand experience based on the
human ideal embodied by the brand.
5. Evaluate: the progress and innovations
demonstrated by the ideal as well as the people.
Conclusion: Changing People’s Lives
Life is ever changing. Without change, life,
people and brands fade out and eventually
die. That is why changing people’s lives is
the challenge that brands are facing today.
Changing people’s lives but only in the direction
and the way that they want, making it possible
to achieve their aspirations, realize their dreams
and ideals in their everyday life. This vision is
not too idealist for business. Instead, based on
the ideals, the vision enhances the potential of
business.
That is why innovation so much craved today
by companies becomes a representation,
implementation and execution of new ways of
approaching these ideals by providing solutions
through products and services – solutions that
surprise and encourage people and take them to the
levels much higher than what they had been used to.
If a brand is able to achieve this, and can do it
consistently and convincingly, and at the same time
consciously and coherently, the company will be
successful and will by far outperform its competitors,
surprise its customers and maintain superior results.
It will also achieve something else: it will join the
constellation of legendary brands that managed to
change the world.

5. Leading by
reputation
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