The insight and strategy consultancy, The Leading Edge, worked with its sister agency, Hotwire, questioning 1,200 people in the UK and Australia for its report. It asked respondents to identify brands they consider ‘great', ‘not good’ and those that ‘used to be great'.

From the work, it has specified five distinctive qualities of brands that are considered great: passionate vision, challenging the status quo; connected care, they care about employees, suppliers and customers; active social change, with social responsibility across all they do; celebrating origins, they applaud originality; and human inspiration by encouraging people to be better.  

The results also showed that brands considered great have several commercial advantages including higher customer loyalty and better engagement among shoppers.

Great brands are more commonly found in the food & beverage, tech and sport sectors. The top 10 brands most commonly mentioned as great were: Nike, Apple, Heinz, Coca Cola, Samsung, Adidas, Cadbury, Amazon, M&S and Sony. 

Daniela Fernandez, managing partner at The Leading Edge, said: "Our study shows that what consumers want from brands has changed. They want brands that are much more than just good quality, distinct and trustworthy; they want great brands. These great brands are caring, enduring, socially responsible – sustainable in every sense of the word. This is what makes our research so fascinating, people want brands to do more, be more."