I have just come across an article on Forbes that outlines the results from Havas Media’s 2013 Meaningful Brand Index.

The MBI measures consumers’ perception of a brand’s influence on society, environment, economy, health and emotional wellbeing – in other words, the higher a brand in the MBI, the more positive impact it is seen having on consumers’ lives.

In this year’s results, tech giants Google, Samsung and Microsoft are the top 3 (interestingly Apple hasn’t made it to the top 10 – a sign that perhaps we are suffering from Apple fatigue?). And according to Havas Media: ‘’What the results tell us is that tech companies have done some powerful things over the last few years to focus on people’s lives and they’re starting to reap the benefits of that.’’

I couldn’t agree more.

However, this brand ranking takes on another dimension when read in conjunction with the following stat:

“The majority of those surveyed worldwide say they wouldn’t care if 73 percent of brands no longer existed tomorrow, and only 20 percent of all brands are viewed as having a positive role in consumers’ lives.” (Just to put this into perspective: 134,000 consumers were interviewed in 23 countries on 700 brands.)

If that statement doesn’t shake things up in the corporate world, then what will?

In short, as a brand you ‘d better play an active role in improving your consumers’ lives if you want to stay ahead of the pack – and more to the point, stay in business in the years to come.

The current economic climate has further reinforced the need for brands to play a meaningful role in our day to day lives and the community at large, and stop taking our custom for granted. Recent research shows that consumers are expecting brands to help solve the issues society faces and provide tangible proof of their efforts – that’s where CSR and Fair Trade come into play (ref. WARC Trends Toolkit 2013 report).

Finally, as I ponder over the correlation between the MBI score and Net Promoter Score (the score we give a brand on how likely we are to recommend it – a key performance indicator for most brands), I would say the higher the MBI ranking, the higher the NPS – which means all brands efforts should focus on the former to help increase the latter.