Fashion brand index 2018 Q4

Please note: This is not the most recent brand index. If you’re right where you want to be, read on. If you’re looking for the latest data, click here for our most recent brand indexes. 

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

What do we mean by ‘platform agnostic’? We mean the results are not influenced by any particular method of obtaining them, such as looking only at social media mentions, or brand search terms. This reduces bias and provides a much more accurate view of a brand’s strength in any given category.

Learn more about why we believe this is the best methodology for brand intelligence.

To determine the fashion brand index, we look at three things:

• Percentage of unprompted brand recall within a named category e.g. ‘entertainment’, ‘technology’ or ‘alcohol’
• How likely a person is to purchase your particular brand (purchase intent)
• How likely a person is to recommend your brand (net promoter score)

Our data is gathered every quarter from an online survey sent to a nationally representative panel of 1,000 UK consumers aged 18-65.

Analysis this week has pointed to November footfall on the high street being at its lowest point since the 2008 recession. The figures showed that neither Black Friday, nor the run up to Christmas had succeeded in pulling in the usual droves of shoppers. Instead, though, people were spending more online.

When our research revealed that clothes were the second most popular item to buy on Black Friday, it’s clear that in the world of fashion, brands need to fight hard for consumer attention. Perhaps the days of luring people in with attractive window displays have passed, and time is better spent on cultivating share of mind. When a google search bar is the route to your store for a huge proportion of consumers, unprompted recall becomes an ever more important metric.

Looking to our leaderboard for this quarter, we can see that it’s undergone quite a change. While Primark and New Look retained their respective second and third places, Next and Nike did a straight swap for first and fourth.

Next leapfrogged up to the winning spot, improving on all metrics. Unprompted recall climbed an impressive 4%, purchase intent 10%, and NPS 12.8. Nike, meanwhile saw a downward turn across the board. It may be that winter lends itself less well to the athleisure trend that Nike thrives in, or that the heightened UK brand awareness of their Londoner campaign is wearing off, and the Colin Kaepernick US-focused ad hasn’t had the same effect in the UK.

ASOS held its place at number 5. Further down the table, Adidas and Gucci also held their modest 9th and 10th respective places.

There were two newcomers this quarter: Levi’s and M&S, coming in at joint 6th place. M&S’s Christmas campaign focussed heavily on their clothes offering, showcasing ‘must haves’ from all parts of their range, from partywear to underwear. Perhaps some of this awareness has translated into fashion-specific share of mind for a shop that is so often associated with food.

All of the top 10 brands managed to score positive NPS, demonstrating an optimism from consumers in this area. Though high street footfall is still down, it’s clear that these brands are succeeding in winning good consumer sentiment in the run up to Christmas, and January sales.

Here is how people described the fashion brands that came top of mind during unprompted brand recall:

The 2018 fashion industry brands report

The full 2018 report includes:

• The UK’s leading fashion brands for awareness, purchase intent and Net Promoter Score from the start of the year, so you can compare where shifts have occurred over time
• Industry-wide averages and market dynamics
• Key takeaways for the UK fashion industry

Click to view report