Analyst Speak: Media brands are failing to stir love or hate among their customers

5 November 2009

Many of the most-talked about brand names in the new media sector are failing to win people’s affections. FreshMinds recently carried out a survey to understand how UK consumers feel about new media brands. We used buzz tracking to identify the 20 most talked-about media brands online and then asked people how they felt about them. With a few notable exceptions, the results were surprisingly dispassionate.

Although both Facebook and Twitter have attracted extensive media coverage in the last few years, they were the least loved of all the brands surveyed. Less than 6% of respondents said they loved Facebook and just 2% were in love with Twitter. ITV was by far the most popular brand, with one in four respondents loving it and another 49% liking the brand.

The results showed people aren’t engaging with media brands. The BBC, for example, attracted largely ambivalent responses - over a third (35.8%) don’t care either way about the brand. Attitudes towards newspapers (with the exception of tabloids), commercial TV channels and big online brands were similarly lukewarm.

One notable exception is Sky, which polarises opinion more than any other brand -; 30% either hate or dislike it while nearly half (47%) say they love or like the brand. Clearly Sky has a much clearer identity than most media brands and is succeeding in getting consumers to engage for good or ill. From a brand manager’s point of view, that 30% of negative feeling towards Sky should be far less cause for concern than the fact nearly half of people have no opinion about The Guardian, for example.

These results suggest people see some media brands as being entirely functional. Questions need to be asked about the connection consumers make between content and the brands responsible for its delivery. With so few brands arousing passion, this survey points towards a worrying trend that suggests people feel very little emotion towards media brands. The extent of any loyalty, therefore, is highly questionable.