Brands of 2018
Let’s face it, ranking the most valuable brands are usually done so with random polling or typical numbers like revenue, market size, units sold, market cap and more. Now obviously those number matter, especially for a brand’s bottom line, but there are intangible factors that sometimes can’t be quantified. Factors like a brand’s viralability and the kind of waves that a campaign or a single piece of content might make. In today’s social media landscape, ANYTHING can happen and you’re quite literally one hashtag away from being viral. One second you’re yodeling in Walmart and the next you’re opening up for Coachella, or one minute you’re an unknown clothing brand and the next you’re pumping out $400MM in sales through Instagram. So MMedia decided to rank the top brands by their viralability the waves they made in 2018 - both good and bad waves.
Here are our top picks:
20 - Off-White
Being a luxury brand just 6 years old and 24 locations globally, they’re now considered the most popular luxury brand in the world. Thats right you heard it, beating out Gucci, Balenciaga and others. This fashion giant has made quite a statement in 2018 with their seasonal lines, simplistic designs centered around modern minimalism, and a number of brand collaborations. It’s quite the underdog story - seeing as all the other luxury brands in the fashion industry have been around for 100+ years. Can’t wait to see what they have in store for us in 2019.
19 - Peloton
Their commercials are everywhere and for an in-home cycling machine… they really know how to make sweating in your living room look sexy. They’ve somehow managed to turn a stale concept of an in-home workout to a high priced cycling machine and they’re doing it rather well. So far, their content has been consistently well put together and the brand messaging is almost flawless... almost. I’m not entirely sure how they’re going to handle the fallout of the Twitter thread that is absolutely destroying Peloton’s content I was just speaking so highly of…. read his tweets for yourself - they’re hilarious. Can this one Twitter thread threaten the 2018 branding efforts of Peloton? Let’s see how Peloton responds in 2019.
18 - Starbucks
THE RED CUP - Remember back in 2015 when Starbucks caught a whole lot of heat in the middle of the unstable political climate? Well in short, they were caught in the middle of a religious battle between the use of “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” - My memory is a little blurry on this issue but Starbucks basically brought it back in 2018. This time… they didn’t catch any heat for it. From a branding perspective it worked in 2015 and it worked again in 2018 despite having two polarizing effects. Aesthetically speaking, the red cup is a great design. Big fan of the Red Cup. Can’t wait to see their new cup design for the 2019 holiday season.
17 - Samsung
In the world of branding, Samsung has always been playing catch up to Apple - this year Samsung beat out P&G as the biggest spender in advertising. A series of campaigns took some serious jabs at their rival competition and it might have worked, at least from a media perspective. Now as a die hard Apple consumer I’ll admit Samsung’s 2018 efforts were pretty entertaining. We’re looking forward to seeing how it plays out in sales for 2019.
16 - Netflix
If you know anything about video streaming you’ll know that the only way Netflix, Hulu, Youtube and other streaming services make a real profit is when they have their own original series. That way they can avoid paying absurd royalty fees to film companies. Netflix is leading the original series industry and taking their brand to the next level by investing a sizable amount of money into originals. We’ll make a bold prediction right now and say that the only content we’ll be watching in 5 years are original series paid for and produced by streaming services. So 2019 should be an exciting year to see what Netflix has in store for us.
15 - Spotify
It’s no secret that Spotify has had a rough year, burning through millions of dollars every day and eventually increasing their subscription prices to close the gap in their books. The IPO in April of 2018 definitely helped buy some time for the music streaming giant but competition in the industry is tough sledding. The new artist features on Spotify will definitely put up a fight with Soundcloud as they battle to be the platform for new talent discovery. I’m excited to see how the music streaming landscape shifts in 2019.
14 - YouTube
YouTube, YouTube TV, YouTube Premium (previously called YouTube Red) - To be honest, I have no idea what they’re doing with their brand. Keeping everything relatively close but it’s hard to differentiate from one to another. So from a branding perspective… WTF are you doing YouTube. On the other hand, their business model seems to be making some waves. They have monthly subscriptions for YouTube TV, and they have free access to YouTube Premium with ads. So they’re double dipping with their users and its a pretty smart move to have an insurance policy for both business models. Bold strategy Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for em.
13 - Dunkin donuts
Dunkin finally realized they’re more than just donuts. They rebranded and dropped the “donuts” part of their name - Which was a smart move. If they want to build a global brand to compete with global giant Starbucks and regional giants like Caribou Coffee or even Saxby’s a strong local brand here in Philadelphia, they’ll need to be more than just donuts. Honestly this should have happened years ago but better late than never.
12 - Uber
In the midst of Uber’s alleged hostile work culture and the new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi taking over the helm, Uber’s rebranding efforts (again) are accomplishing exactly what it was designed to do... Stay under the radar. After a domino effect of bad press, first Travis’ alleged misconduct, then the toxic company culture and then the self driving vehicle crashes - Uber managed to stay under the radar in 2018 while expanding their market share. The rebrand initiative blended in without ruffling any more feathers post-domino effect. Hats off to you Dara for taking over the brand and steering the ship out of the storm.
11 - Apple
Every year like clockwork, Apple releases a new phone and it gets better and better. In 2018, their new smartphone camera capabilities puts Apple to the next level. But that’s not why the brand made waves in 2018. In short - Airpods. These little wireless headphones have been around for a while and just now finally hitting mainstream consumers. Airpods are now trending memes on social media and becoming a meme phenomenon especially during the holiday gift giving season. Spoiler alert: Apple stores were sold out of these headphones across the globe to end the 2018 year on a good note.
10 - Facebook
One minute you’re the largest social network platform in the world and the next you’re being questioned about election tampering by Congress who have no idea how the internet works. Facebook made waves in 2018 alright, just not the most ideal waves they wanted to make. As a brand, they’ve taken quite a dive with a whole lot of bad press. Hopefully they can spin this disastrous year into something positive in 2019.
9 - Amazon
Amazon is eating up everything in sight. The search for a 2nd HQ literally hurled city officials all over the country to spend millions of taxpayer’s money on campaigns to woo Jeff Bezos… the groveling was pretty hilarious and pathetic at the same time. I understand the economic implications of bringing a giant like Amazon into a city, but come on… It was exciting to see what cities could bring to the table for Bezos but as much of a hype as it was for Amazon to make their announcement, it was rather disappointing to see Amazon pick two locations. How anticlimactic was that? Regardless of how the search for the 2nd HQ ended, it was quite the stir for the brand.
8 - Bud light
Two words, Dilly Dilly - or more commonly used in the city of MMedia’s HQ… Philly Philly. Bud Light’s medieval themed campaign caught fire with their catchy phrase “Dilly Dilly” and it got even more popular when the Philadelphia Eagles won Superbowl LII. Oh and of course the play of the game was named “Philly Special” aka “Philly Philly” in honor of Bud Light’s clearly successful Dilly Dilly campaign. The brand definitely capitalized on the phrase and now let’s see how the internet responds to their continued efforts. Will it get old and die out in 2019? or should we expect a reboot and Bud Light doubling down on the Dilly Dilly campaign?
7 - Nike
Nike ran a single campaign that literally split the entire nation in half... I know people who literally sold Nike stock when Nike decided to make Colin Kaepernick the face of their campaign. I also know people who went out and spent an absurd amount of money on Nike products they didn’t need. Regardless of the results, the brand made waves. What else do they have up their sleeve for 2019?
6 - Supreme
The epitome of brands using social media to build a luxury name. Supreme has been around since 1994 but it wasn’t until 2018 when social media catapulted the brand into viral status with a series of social media influencers picking up the iconic red and white logo and putting it everywhere. The brand took to new heights using social media and expanding out of its traditional market as a skateboard brand and into the luxury-everything brand.
5 - IHOP
The confusion and critique of the name change put IHOP back into relevancy. The breakfast go-to franchise has always been recognized for their pancakes (hence the name IHOP - International House of Pancakes) But they made a bold move to temporarily (allegedly) change their name from IHOP to IHOB - International House of Burgers. As you may have noticed, they got their 5 mins of fame and the internet exploded. This might have been the most genius marketing move to bring awareness of other menu items. The play on their name to highlight other menu items… Honestly we’re upset we didn’t think of it first. Imagine Burger King temporarily rebranding their name to Ice Cream King as a way to highlight their ice cream while giving a not so subtle jab at their rival McDonald’s inability to keep their ice cream machines working. Absolute game-changer. Too bad IHOP beat them to the punch with that playbook.
4 - Tide
Millennials finally got off the stage for universal scrutiny and Gen Z’ers were pretty much scorched for their stupidity eating Tide Pods as an internet challenge. Tide’s brand got some heat for this internet challenge… I guess any press is good press, even when Gen Z’ers are swallowing their products and going to the hospital for it. The brand took some hits and likely made it worse when they used Rob Gronkowski as their spokesperson to combat this internet challenge. Sure he’s one of the best athletes in the NFL and definitely a future Hall of Famer but he doesn’t exactly have the best reputation, especially when it comes to his intelligence. So the question is - was Gronkowski as Tide’s spokesperson absolutely… PERFECT? I’ll let you be the judge of that.
3 - Fashion Nova
The brand is less than 6 years old and taking on a whole new approach to the fashion industry. Typical brands in the fashion industry wait for seasonal releases after they put together collections to be released over a long period of time on the runway. Well Fashion Nova is doing it in lightning speed and using social media as their runway, releasing new products every day and pumping out $400MM in annual sales. Executed all through Instagram with celebrities, influencers, and everyone else in the social media world who has an audience. As one of the fastest growing brands in 2018 by every traditional metric, they’ve made quite the name for themselves. 2019 should be an exciting year for the rising fashion star.
2 - Instagram
IG is now considered the most powerful social media app on the market. It wasn’t enough to take a huge chunk of Snapchat’s marketshare by adding the story feature so here comes IGTV. This long content feature is a shot at YouTube and it seems to be working. Leveraging existing audiences to stay on the app longer and spend less time on rival platforms. But Instagram didn’t stop there, another major feature introduction: product tagging. Now millions of influencers, merchants and anyone else who has a product to sell can use the platform as an e-commerce go-to. This new addition empowered users even more and encourages engagement between its users. What a year it has been for Instagram - not so much for their parent company Facebook…
1 - Juul
JUUL is at the top of our list. We know what you’re thinking… WHY?! Well for one, they’ve seen a 700% sales increase, a dominating 73% market share, and most importantly… viralability. The Millennial and Gen Z’er videos are EVERYWHERE on social media. Obviously the user generated content on social media helps build the brand but we aren’t giving enough credit to the designers of the product. JUUL took vaping to the next level, just like how Steve Jobs took personal computing and made it cool and sexy. Before JUUL, you had large industrial looking vape products or cigarette lookalike products at gas stations. This brand made it not only aesthetically sexy in design but they made it culturally cool. Now as far as the discussion goes for whether they should be marketing nicotine to young Gen Z’ers… we don’t have a fight in that.
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