Dis­count retail­er Aldi is the top UK brand of 2014. That’s accord­ing to YouGov­’s BrandIn­dex, a mea­sure of glob­al brand per­cep­tion rank­ing for 850 brands in 32 cat­e­gories. YouGov, which spe­cial­izes in sur­vey and opin­ion polls, con­duct­ed 3,700 inter­views each day in order to col­lect the data for the results. Seg­re­gat­ed by coun­try, the results give a fas­ci­nat­ing insight into the brands that are per­form­ing the best in the minds of con­sumers.

Respon­dents of YouGov­’s sur­vey were asked for their views about brands, and whether they had heard pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive news about them in recent weeks. The data was then com­piled to form a Buzz score, which serves as both a mea­sure of pos­i­tive sen­ti­ment, and brand aware­ness lev­els among con­sumers.

Here’s a look at which brands per­formed best in the minds of con­sumers, and why.

The BrandIndex Top 10 UK Brands

Aldi

Aldi had a great year in 2014. The dis­count super­mar­ket chain has been gain­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty, steal­ing mar­ket share from com­peti­tors, and is fast becom­ing the UK’s sixth largest super­mar­ket. The brand also scored a top rank­ing for sim­plic­i­ty, which accord­ing to a Siegel+Gale report is con­sid­ered by con­sumers to be one of the most impor­tant char­ac­ter­is­tics they wish to see in a brand.

One of the strengths of the brand has been in break­ing down tra­di­tion­al class per­cep­tions of dis­count super­mar­kets, man­ag­ing to appeal to mid­dle-class shop­pers seek­ing both val­ue and qual­i­ty.

Lidl

Like fel­low com­peti­tor Aldi, Ger­man super­mar­ket chain Lidl are going from strength to strength in the UK. The brand has done what many inter­na­tion­al retail­ers failed to do: pen­e­trate and adapt to an inter­na­tion­al mar­ket while main­tain­ing the val­ues on which the brand draws strength.

Facil­i­tat­ing this has meant adapt­ing their oper­a­tions and brand­ing cam­paigns: for exam­ple, the prac­tice of deliv­er­ing leaflets through peo­ple’s let­ter­box­es was dropped in favor of TV adver­tis­ing and social media ini­tia­tives to bet­ter con­nect with a British audi­ence.

Also a high per­form­ing brand on the afore­men­tioned Sim­plic­i­ty Index, 2014 also saw Lidl launch an expan­sion pro­gram in which build­ing brand aware­ness played a key role.

BBC iPlayer

Pre­vi­ous­ly occu­py­ing the num­ber one spot, BBC iPlay­er has retained pop­u­lar­i­ty as a provider of excep­tion­al free con­tent in the UK. Devel­op­ments in 2014 includ­ed fur­ther improve­ments to the user expe­ri­ence, with shows avail­able to down­load and watch for 30 days rather than 7, and improved sup­port for mobile devices.

John Lewis

The 2014 Christ­mas peri­od saw depart­ment store retail­er John Lewis achieve the strongest sales in the part­ner­ships 150-year his­to­ry, fueled by a record-break­ing Black Fri­day.

John Lewis’ Mon­ty the Pen­guin brand­ing cam­paign won the hearts of con­sumers and achieved great dig­i­tal results: there were 49,562 tweets in the first few days about Mon­ty the Pen­guin, and #mon­tythep­en­guin became the top Twit­ter trend 90 min­utes after it was released.

Dyson

Dyson is viewed as a quin­tes­sen­tial British brand. The brand has won sup­port­ers and earned a great rep­u­ta­tion by being inno­v­a­tive, offer­ing qual­i­ty prod­ucts, and pro­vid­ing excel­lent cus­tomer ser­vice. Founder James Dyson announced a £1.5 bil­lion invest­ment in research and devel­op­ment to sup­port his wish to see tal­ent­ed engi­neers remain in the UK.

Waitrose

Wait­rose have been very smart with their strat­e­gy, and the seem­ing­ly unstop­pable threat of dis­count super­mar­kets, by offer­ing a dis­tinct val­ue propo­si­tion for con­sumers. In an inter­view with Mar­ket­ing Week, Chair­man Mark Price spoke of how the brand was push­ing for­ward new inno­va­tions, such as wine tast­ing areas, free cof­fee, and their extend­ed prod­uct range.

“We’re going to be every­thing that the dis­coun­ters aren’t,” he said.

bbc.co.uk

The sec­ond BBC brand to make the list, the news site has built a rep­u­ta­tion for qual­i­ty jour­nal­ism and con­tent, as well as a great user expe­ri­ence.

One recent inno­va­tion to sto­ry­telling for­mats has includ­ed for ways into immer­sive jour­nal­ism – ful­ly immer­sive scrol­lable pages where sto­ries are sup­port­ed by sound, video, and images that breathe new life into writ­ten con­tent.

Netflix

In some ways, Net­flix is more than a brand – it’s a home media rev­o­lu­tion. TV shows have nev­er been more addic­tive, and new shows like “House of Cards” and “Orange is the New Black” have gained pop­u­lar­i­ty.

Rev­enues in 2014 con­tin­ued to grow, and the brand have every rea­son to expect the suc­cess to con­tin­ue with a sound busi­ness strat­e­gy and val­ue propo­si­tion to sup­port the brand.

Marks & Spencer

Marks & Spencer was anoth­er retail­er that expe­ri­enced a great Christ­mas sales peri­od, run­ning a suc­cess­ful #fol­lowthe­fairies Christ­mas cam­paign.

Marks & Spencer was also fea­tured in a study high­light­ing brands that deliv­er excel­lent cus­tomer expe­ri­ences.

MoneySavingExpert

Mon­eySaving­Ex­pert has built up a rep­u­ta­tion over many years as being an author­i­ta­tive source in con­sumer finance and spend­ing. The site offers guides, tools, and an active com­mu­ni­ty forum for users to share advice on every­thing from finan­cial prod­ucts to thrifty spend­ing tips.

Demon­strat­ing its strong val­ues have been key to the brand’s suc­cess. Despite the con­tro­ver­sial sale in 2012, con­sumers still rec­og­nize the site as being a great resource for impar­tial guid­ance and gen­uine advice, that can empow­er their finan­cial man­age­ment and spend­ing.

What Are The Characteristics Of A Great Brand?

The brands fea­tur­ing in the top 10 each offer a fan­tas­tic expe­ri­ence and val­ue propo­si­tion for con­sumers. Aldi and Lidl are remark­able in that they are both rel­a­tive new­com­ers to the UK mar­ket, but have won huge trac­tion because of their abil­i­ty to pro­vide qual­i­ty and gen­uine val­ue. The same applies to both BBC iPlay­er, and bbc.co.uk, which offer fan­tas­tic con­tent to British con­sumers (for the cost of a license fee).

When it comes to mat­ters of brand, val­ues such as sim­plic­i­ty, and the pro­vi­sion of excep­tion­al cus­tomer expe­ri­ences (a virtue that neces­si­tates great com­pa­ny cul­ture), are also valu­able, with the same brands rank­ing high­ly for stud­ies mea­sur­ing per­cep­tion for those val­ues.

Were you sur­prised by BrandIn­dex’s find­ings?