Brands of 2019
Ranking the most valuable brands is usually done with random polling or typical boring numbers like revenue, market size, units sold, market cap and other metrics. Now obviously those numbers 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 media landscape, ANYTHING can happen and you’re quite literally one post away from being viral. From successfully mapped campaigns to accidentally being in the right place at the right time, brands can make all kinds of noise if they can win the hearts and minds of the internet. So MMedia decided to rank the top brands by their viralability, the waves they made in 2019 - both good and bad.
Here are our top picks:
20 - Gillette (bad)
As the internet continues to create cracks in the pavement across industries, the shaving industry is not an exception. Gillette has seen a tremendous amount of loss in market share with the growing trend of Direct To Consumer brands like Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club. So how did Gillette kick off the 2019 year? They tossed up a hail marry attempt to “connect” with the younger woke generation. Although they received praises primarily from women and the social activist segment, they completely underestimated the Millennials and Gen Z’s ‘bullshit’ radar and received backlash from their base consumers - Gen X and Boomers. Reported losses of 8 Billion Dollars directly from this campaign is a tough pill to swallow. If there is anything to learn from this failed campaign - its to never underestimate authenticity and don’t blindly jump on the woke-washing trend.
19 - Netflix & hulu | fyre festival
In January of 2019, both Netflix and Hulu released their documentary of the infamously failed festival debacle, Fyre Festival. The massive failure and nightmare of an event for the Fyre Festival was the talk of the year in 2017. One of the biggest flops of this decade and an on-going legal battle between the organizers of the event and the attendees who were duped. The race to capture the whole story was on. Netflix and Hulu’s documentary captured the disastrous storyline of the event’s ultimate demise. Obviously these two brands received raving reviews and praise for each of their own documentaries and they couldn’t have done it without each other. The hype behind the story was already juicy enough, but then pinning them against each other? Genius.
18 - palantir
Never heard of Palantir? Thats the point. So why are they on our list for brands of 2019? They’re brand relies almost entirely on the notion of secrecy and mystery. Palantir has done exactly that since their inception in 2003. So why are they on our list this year? For one, they’ve continued to stay under the radar despite winning an 800 million dollar contract to rebuild the United States Army’s entire network. And two, thats one hell of a project to beat out Lockheed Martin, a legacy government contractor that typically wins all the major contracts of that size. It isn’t just an impressive feat, but it is an indicator of what is to come in the future of government contracting. We’re excited to see more fast moving tech companies beat out the giant legacy government contractors.
17 - the year of ipo’s (good & Bad)
This year had quite the number of IPO’s and the almost-IPO’s. Regardless of how they’ve performed in the market, it is a notable year for IPO’s and these brands received quite the buzz. Even the brands that originally planned to go public in 2019 and ended up postponing their IPO received media attention and hype. For any brand, it is always a good thing to have market optimism before going public. Safe to say that almost every brand received market optimism for their IPO’s. Here are some brands worth mentioning for IPO’s and almost-IPO’s in 2019:
Slack
Peloton
Uber
Lyft
Pinterest
Zoom
Fiverr
Beyond Meat
Aramco
AirBnB (almost)
Postmates (almost)
WeWork (almost)
Robinhood (almost)
16 - robinhood
Speaking of IPO hype, Robinhood made our list this year. This online brokerage trading platform was created in 2013 and has since put Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade on the defensive. The brand took online brokerage trading and simplified it making it extremely accessible with the end-user in mind. As we continue to emphasize, the internet has democratized everything and no industry is exempt from this disruption. Robinhood’s rumors of going public this year along with offering competitive margin rates combined with ease of use now has over 10 million users. A major aspect of branding is not necessarily about the campaigns we run or the content and messaging we push out. A brand simply exists in the minds and hearts of the end-user. Despite little marketing efforts from Robinhood, they at the moment exist in the end-users’ mind as the favorite underdog in the industry.
15 - wendy’s
Another year has come and gone filled with Wendy’s tweets. Over the past couple of years, the brand has done a phenomenal job in establishing a savage-like persona through social media by breaking all of the PR protocols. Year after year Wendy’s continues to keep its engagement high and expand the dialogue between the brand and its audience. This year we saw a number of brands who stole this blueprint bearing the same successful fruit. We’re excited to see how Wendy’s will continue to build its brand in 2020.
14 - amazon (good & bad)
Joey Zwillinger’s blog/letter to Jeff Bezos posted on Medium.
It’s hard to imagine Amazon to not make our list. Last year, Amazon made our list because of the never ending buzz about its new HQ’s. This year however they made the list for other reasons, both good and bad reasons. Let’s start with the good - Amazon has positioned itself perfectly to compete in one of the fastest growing markets, the meal kit delivery industry. This new and fast growing market is dominated by brands like Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, and others. Amazon is poised to take over the fast growing industry with their superb logistics and supply chain paired with their Whole Foods acquisition. Whether Amazon anticipated this several years ago when they were eyeing Whole Foods or they were simply in the right place at the right time, it doesn’t really matter when you have all the right tools to compete and win. Now the bad reason why Amazon made our list is from the exact same perspective. They have all the tools to compete and win, but this time they made a mistake. A fast growing and popular shoe brand called Allbirds makes wool sneakers and Amazon made a version exactly like their product. The only difference here is that Allbirds takes a very eco-friendly approach to the production of their sneakers and you guessed it! Amazon cut corners and they don’t produce their sneakers the same way. Allbirds called Amazon out in the classiest way possible, essentially saying if Amazon is going to copy their product, they should at least copy the eco-friendly process, too. Bravo to Allbirds for not crying over competition, while Amazon received backlash when Allbirds called them out. We’d love to see how Amazon responds in 2020, if they respond at all. Maybe they’re too big to care?
13 - jordan
Speaking of sneakers, the Jordan brand is one of the most iconic and successful sneaker brands of all time. This year a basketball phenom named Zion Williamson entered the NBA draft after an outstanding and legendary performance at Duke University. His play on the court has created a tremendous amount of hype and prediction around the “GOAT” (Greatest Of All Time) conversation. Any prospect player with that much craze is quickly followed by a huge sneaker deal. Zion signed a 75 million dollar contract with Jordan making it the second largest rookie deal ever, following Lebron James’ 90 million dollars. Now we wait to see if Jordan can cash in on the hype and get a return on their investment.
12 - adidas | ivy park + yeezy
Adidas partnered up with two of the hottest and trendiest brands and saw considerable success this year. First, Adidas partnered up with Beyonce’s athletic wear brand Ivy Park. On Beyonce’s instagram post announcing the partnership, it received 2.5 million likes in less than an hour. Talk about influencer power! Easy to predict that the partnership is going to be successful in 2020. Adidas doubled up on powerful icons through their longtime relationship with Kanye West's fashion brand Yeezy. Together the partnership generated over 1.5 billion dollars this year with 15% royalties going directly to Kanye West himself. Adidas made some really smart moves partnering up with Beyonce and Kanye West.
11 - kylie cosmetics
Kylie Jenner has built her cosmetic company into one of the fastest growing brands of 2019. She’s taking full advantage of her social media following and built a billion dollar empire. Kylie Cosmetics has grown so much at record speed through simple marketing and capturing the hearts of its die-hard fans. The cult-like consumer base puts several legacy cosmetic brands on their heels. The simple marketing strategy built almost entirely on pop-culture icons has proven to be a blueprint that works - as seen with Adidas partnering up with Beyonce and Kanye. Kylie Jenner recently sold a majority stake in the company to Coty, a beauty conglomerate for 600 million dollars. Now that the brand has an outside controlling interest, we’ll see what happens to the brand in 2020.
10 - smile direct club
History repeats itself, except this time its a lot sexier. Smile Direct Club has taken an unregulated product in the dental industry and made it extremely accessible while simplifying the entire process. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this with an unregulated medical procedure - when Lasik eye surgery was popularized in the 90’s and became mainstream in the 2000’s it was bound to happen again to another procedure with low entry barriers. This time around, Smile Direct Club took over the teeth alignment industry and continues to be the most recognized brand of choice for the simple dental solution. Minimalism and simple branding is hot this decade and the brand has done just that. The purple teeth straightening brand can be recognized anywhere and we fully anticipate an aggressive expansion in 2020 if they continue to grow at the current pace.
9 - hims & hers
So far we’ve identified several popular trends for the 2019 year - simplicity, minimalism, low entry barriers in new industries, low-unregulated medicinal solutions, and direct to consumer brands. Well Hims and Hers is the perfect combination of all the aforementioned. This direct to consumer brand delivers hair loss solutions along with a number of drugs like erectile dysfunction, libido, acne, and more. The brand is everywhere digitally and you can’t escape it. Their content is simple and minimalistic which is perfect and extremely appealing to a younger market. But even more impressive is the simple messaging that breaks down intimidating social barriers from former old processes. No more time consuming clinic visits and no more embarrassing appointments. The brand messaging is near perfection which is why they made our top 10 list this year.
8 - tesla (Good & Bad)
Yikes…
Tesla had some ups and downs this year with Elon Musk’s antics on social media. But he’s always been that way, so why is this year different? Well Tesla revealed their new truck and it received a lot of buzz both good and bad. Not only did the design of the truck become an internet meme, but it’s showcase on stage was disastrous. The supposedly “unbreakable” window for the truck was shattered on stage during the demo, not once but twice. This may have been the most embarrassing moment of Tesla’s product reveal history. However, despite the failed showing, Tesla’s Cybertruck reported over 200,000 orders and Tesla’s stock prices hit an all time high to end the 2019 year. So was the glass shattering a marketing stunt? Who knows, either way the brand had quite the ups and downs to wrap up the year.
7 - disney
Meet baby yoda - the internet’s favorite child
This year was absolutely dominated by Disney with the ridiculous success of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and the new Disney+ streaming service. Disney launched their streaming service Disney+ which surged the company stock to an all-time high. Disney+ like many other streaming service brands heavily invested into original TV series, which has seen success in the past several years. The Mandalorian, a Disney+ original series has hit the internet by storm with its Star Wars origins. But the original series isn’t just receiving hype because of its Star Wars storyline, its because of a character in the show that doesn’t have any lines. Baby Yoda on the show is breaking the internet with the memes centered around its cuteness. The media giant brand has a very bright future if they continue to produce more Disney+ Originals and more characters like Baby Yoda to capture the hearts of the internet. We doubt Disney fully anticipated that the internet would fall in love with Baby Yoda at the current scale, but sometimes good branding is just pure luck - 2019 was definitely Disney’s lucky year.
6 - wework (bad)
2019 was NOT WeWork’s lucky year, crippled by a domino effect of negative attention. Following the announcement of the IPO, investors began actually looking into the company’s financials. Then the toxic rumors of bad leadership within the company followed and thats when it all fell apart. Investors discovered that the company was leasing to itself, including the founder who owned and licensed the WeWork name back to the company. Just when you thought that was the worst of it, the founder and CEO Adam Neumann cashed out 700 million dollars just months prior the company’s IPO which drew red flags to investors and the market. The IPO has since been postponed and Softbank, the major investor in WeWork has taken over the brand and paid an additional 1.7 billion dollars to Adam Neumann to leave the company. Talk about a series of cash burning nightmares. To end the year, WeWork has laid off thousands of employees and has halted all new location expansions. They even retained Publicis, a crisis PR and advertising firm for 500,000 dollars a month to help with this year’s disaster. WeWork is easily the worst brand of 2019, suffering losses not only financially but more importantly in their brand equity.
5 - whiteclaw
This year was comprised of many things and one of them was hard seltzer. Popularized by its variety of flavors and taste, the industry has grown significantly this year. Millennials are drinking more hard seltzer than they are beer. This is an unprecedented shift in marketshare for the alcoholic beverage industry. The industry has grown triple digits since 2016 and over 300% this year. Whiteclaw is among the most popular brand for the industry, outselling Budweiser. Thats right they outsold Budweiser! And here is the kicker, every liquor store carries the brand, but only 20% of bars and restaurants are selling it. Which means that even though this year was a great year for Whiteclaw, there is still a lot of room to grow in the upcoming years. So how did all of this happen? Well for one, when you break down the generations by drinking preferences, you’ll quickly find that the younger target markets like two simple things, flavors and healthy options. Hard seltzer offers just that, dozens of flavor options and low carbohydrates. Whiteclaw put together a simple product and their marketing was even more simplistic - They took young attractive people and put the silver colorful cans in their hands. Now they’re everywhere from concert venues to bars, with entire sections in the liquor store, to even replacing beer pong on college campuses. What’s next for the brand? Can they hold their spot at the top in 2020 or will competition catch up?
4 - apple
Apple did a number of things extremely well in 2019. Some of what they did, the internet helped carry but for the most part, they continue to produce A+ marketing strategies. First they launched the new iPhone with its famously trending three camera design. First they received criticism for the ugly design, then it was quickly followed by hype and praise for the cameras capabilities. Next they released the dark mode option on their iOS, which has been long overdue and anticipated by Apple users. And lastly they launched a privacy campaign that addressed the on-going concern among smartphone users. They’re the first to run a full campaign addressing the issue rather than shoving product ads down our throats like others. Simplicity doesn’t start with design, it starts with messaging. Hard to imagine a year when Apple doesn’t make our top 10 brands, but they definitely earned it this year.
3 - popeyes (Good & Bad)
Popeyes took shots this year at Chick-Fil-A with their new chicken sandwich, quite literally. Headline stories blew up across the country, reports of shootings that took place in Columbus, Ohio over the chicken sandwich, and gunmen demanding the sandwich in Houston, Texas, and many more. So how did this all happen? Most of the work and buzz that carried the brand was the internet. Again this is a case of lucky marketing and allowing the internet to take control of the steering wheel. The announcement of the chicken sandwich through simple messaging declared itself to be THE chicken sandwich which obviously is a shot at Chick-Fil-A who currently holds the spot in the minds of chicken sandwich lovers. From there, the internet took over with chicken sandwich challenges that fueled an ongoing debate. Hard to imagine the marketing strategy anticipated this much craze over the new sandwich. Either way, Popeyes made a name for itself this year. Currently the sandwich is in limited supply with availabilities being on and off since the hype peaked in late 2019.
2 - marvel
Marvel’s Cinematic Universe is a global fan favorite on the big screen. Marvel, a brand under the Disney umbrella, made record box office numbers this year. The MCU’s box office hits included Spiderman, Captain Marvel, and Avengers End Game which alone brought in a box office total of 2.7 billion dollars. The iconic cast, combined with great writing and superb production makes marketing an easy task. When you have a great product, it doesn’t require a whole lot of selling. Marvel has beaten its rival, DC into near submission. The Marvel brand helped carry Disney this year and with the extension of the MCU into dozens of storylines and characters, the MCU in 2020 and beyond is going to be exciting for Marvel fans.
1 - tik tok
Meet Charli - She is one of the most if not THE most popular content creators on Tik Tok.
Charli’s Tik Tik bio: “don’t worry i don’t get the hype either”
Tik Tok has been around for a few years, but this year they’re making waves across social media users. The craze for the social media app among Gen Z’s and Millennials is real and its extremely addicting. Users spend hours on the app consuming content and now has over 1.5 billion users. Tik Tok is now the most downloaded app on the App Store and Google Play. If you’re not on Tik Tok yet, you will be eventually. If not for creating content, definitely for consuming it, similarly to how most people currently use Youtube. How did Tik Tok make our number one spot for 2019? Easy, they took content that their own users made and spent over a billion dollars in ads last year and averaging 3 million dollars a day in 2019. They essentially created and designed nothing in their marketing efforts. They simply took popular content created by their users and pushed it out through ads. The quality of content is already validated by its current users, so all they had to do was put it in front of people who haven’t downloaded the app yet. Now everyone knows the Tik Tok brand, even if they haven’t downloaded the app. Their branding is simple, easy, effective and absolutely genius. Tik Tok is hands down the hottest brand of 2019.
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