Luxury Brand Index 2019 Q3

Every quarter we survey British consumers on their brand awareness and preferences in relation to the luxury industry. Our latest insights into this industry can be found below.

To compile this quarter’s Luxury Brand Index below, we looked at three things:

• Percentage of unprompted brand recall within the luxury category
• How likely a person is to purchase each brand (Purchase Intent)
• How likely a person is to recommend each brand (Net Promoter Score)

Key Changes in Brand Attributes

The luxury industry is perhaps the most volatile industry that we track in our Brand Indexes. Although it’s consistently been the industry with the most negative consumer sentiment, this quarter only three of the 10 leading luxury brands have managed to keep their NPS out of the minus numbers, and Total Brand Equity scores are at an all-time low. It’s clear that the British public don’t always favour those brands that frame themselves as ‘luxurious’, which results in huge changes quarter to quarter. 

Here are the main winners, losers and movers across 8 main consumer sentiment attributes this quarter: 

• UK consumers remember the Prada name, but they don’t necessarily think of it positively. This quarter, Prada have nabbed the lowest weighted ranking for 5 of the 8 attributes, with consumers thinking they have the worst branding, quality, value for money, service, and in-store experience. Value for money in particular was rated extremely negatively across all of the top 10, with Prada receiving a weighted ranking of 51.09%, only just surpassing Rolls-Royce (51.39%) to claim last place. 
• Apple received consistently high rankings and ranked in first place for trendiness, branding, value for money, in-store customer experience, and overall brand presence, with trendiness in particular achieving an impressive 95.31% weighted ranking. They’ve gained their first place positions in trendiness and in-store experience since Q2, stealing them from Michael Kors and M&S respectively, who have both dropped from the top 10 entirely this quarter.
• Last quarter, Louis Vuitton ranked last for quality and value for money – this quarter they have narrowly escaped claiming those titles, passing both to Prada (they did, however, only miss out on a last place ranking for quality by only 0.21%).
• Despite ranking first for 4 of the key attributes in Q2, M&S does not feature in the top 10 this quarter, because of a big drop in Unprompted Recall. This could be due to lacking association with luxury as the brand tries to become more accessible to those outside of their established customer base, or a sign that M&S is on the decline.
• Harrods were ranked last for trendiness, and Armani ranked as the least ethical luxury brand – both of these brands are newcomers into the top 10 in Q3.

Key Takeaways

• The leaderboard this quarter is almost unrecognisable from Q2, with huge jumps, drops and lots of newcomers changing the luxury landscape. Sitting  on top the leaderboard is Chanel, which has rocketed up from sixth place last quarter. In Q3, it has by far the highest Total Brand Equity score, the second-highest Unprompted Brand Recall, and neutral rankings across the 8 brand attributes. 
• Rolex, Dior, Louis Vuitton and Prada have also made gains this quarter, with Rolex in particular making the leap from tenth to second place, spurred on by increases in all of the key metrics. Dior have landed firmly in third place, even though they’ve seen declines across the board, including a plunge into negative Net Promoter Score.  Thanks to the overall volatility of the leaderboard, they’ve still managed to end up 4 places higher than last quarter.
• 2 brands have dropped in the rankings in Q3, and a further 3 have fallen off the leaderboard altogether. Apple have fallen from first place to third, despite receiving the highest Net Promoter Score and being generally seen positively by UK consumers, thanks to a drop in Unprompted Brand Recall and Purchase Intent (it’s worth noting that this data was collected before the latest iPhone announcement). Gucci have fallen 5 places, from fifth to tenth. 
• M&S, Hugo Boss, and Michael Kors have fallen from the top 10 in Q3, replaced by Armani, Rolls-Royce, and Harrods coming in at sixth, seventh, and eighth place.

The Full Report

The report from Q1 includes:

• The UK’s leading luxury brands for Awareness, Purchase Intent and Net Promoter Score
• Overall Brand Strength and Total Brand Equity index
• Industry averages and market dynamics
• Key takeaways for the UK Luxury industry

The report is based on a nationally representative survey of 1000 people in the UK (aged 18+), surveyed in January 2019. 

Click to view research

Brand Index Methodology

The Attest Brand Index is a platform agnostic measure of a brand’s total brand equity in the Alcohol sector, as determined by real consumers.

What does that mean?

When we say ‘Platform Agnostic’, we mean the results are not influenced by any particular method of obtaining them, like looking exclusively at social media mentions or at brand search terms. This reduces bias and gives us a much more accurate view of a brand’s strength in their category.

Learn more about why we think this is the best methodology for Brand Intelligence.

Brand Index data is gathered every quarter from a nationally representative survey to 1,000 UK consumers aged 18-65.