Apple is top storytelling brand

The 2014 Brand Storytelling Report, identifies the top brands in the UK according to respondents’ answers to key storytelling characteristics. More than 100 brands were put into the research — based on media spend, along with some charities and social media brands — and the 2,000 UK consumers were asked questions including ‘which brands do you consider to have a unique character or personality’; ‘which brands tell a credible story’ and ‘which brands have a clear opinion’.

This is the second year of the survey and while Apple and Cadbury came out on top, M&S, Kellogg’s, Heinz and Fairy have dropped out of the top ten to be replaced by McDonald’s ( 4^th), Virgin Media ( 7^th), YouTube ( 8^th) and Macmillan ( 9^th).

M&S’s is not the only retailer to suffer. Tesco has dropped 14 places from 13^th to 27^th with Asda falling 10 places to 37^th and Sainsbury’s a drop of 17 places to 45^th. Only Aldi has risen up the rankings – moving up 17 places to 20.

For the second year running, Apple has come out as the top storytelling brand; it was ranked first in five of the nine key storytelling elements. As Apple continues to explore new markets such as wearables, it polled the most votes against the ‘brands you’re intrigued to know what they’ll do next’ category and was cited as the UK’s top brand considered to have a ‘unique personality/character’.

Elsewhere, charities was the top performing brand category overall and UKIP was the only political party to make it into the top 20.

Ed Woodcock, director of narrative, Aesop Agency said: “Marketers are waking up to storytelling’s ability to engage and make an emotional connection with audiences. Brands on the whole are often scared of setting an agenda. That doesn’t necessarily mean having a campaigning attitude or a strident tone of voice, but rather being courageously clear about what you stand for. The truth is narratives need baddies as well as goodies. And it’s this contrast that brands often fail to spell out.”