Celebrating a brand’s heritage can improve public perception
As the year draws to a close, 2019 has seen some well-known British brands celebrate anniversaries and centenaries.
Two of Britain’s largest supermarkets, Tesco and Sainsbury’s celebrated their 100th and 150-year anniversaries respectively, while British Airways also celebrated its 100th year of trading.
Camelot, which owns the National Lottery and Euromillions, was another to celebrated a landmark birthday — its 25th — this year.
All four brands released commemorative adverts, such as Tesco’s “100 years of great value” price cuts and Euromillions pledge to make 25 millionaires on 25 October.
New YouGov data demonstrates that anniversaries like these can lead to a positive boost for customer brand
perception, as long as there are no other negative events overshadowing the celebrations.
Over 2019, Ad Awareness scores (whether someone has seen or heard an advert broadcast by a company in the past two weeks) for Sainsbury’s increased 3.1 points this year, Tesco by four points, the National Lottery by 4.3 points and Euromillions by 3.4 points, demonstrating the impact that celebratory adverts can have on the British public.
However, the centenary of British Airways was overshadowed by this summer’s pilot strikes that led to many missed flights and cancelled holidays for customers. This meant its advert had a markedly lower impact, demonstrated by their declining Ad Awareness score over the year (minus 7.5 points).
Impression scores (whether someone has a positive or negative impression of a brand) for these four brands also increased over the year, with both Camelot brands increasing the most.
It’s clear from our data that anniversary celebrations are certainly something for marketing teams to consider when planning their yearly content.
Not only can a brand’s awareness among the public increase but their impression of the brand also improves.
Stephan Shakespeare is chief executive of YouGov
Main image: Getty