The Brand Winners and Losers of 2014: Those That Made a Difference, for Better or Worse

It’s always fun rounding up the year’s biggest branding breakthroughs and bombs, and 2014 gave us plenty of fodder. This year, I asked 400-plus Prophet colleagues around the globe to share their nominations. They were impressed withcompanies like Burberry, which continues to combine its knowledge of the luxury marketplace with Gen Y’s passion for digital; Samsung, with its artful advertising takedown of the iPhone and its epic selfie moment at this year’s Academy Awards; Snapchat, as it navigates its way from collegiate smartphones to viable advertising platform, earning a market value of $10 billion along the way. As I wrote earlier this year, there’s no denying that The ALS Association made a major splash with their virally successful “Ice Bucket Challenge.” And who can argue with Taylor Swift’s brilliance at marketing “1989” and herself, while singlehandedly trying to save an industry.

My Prophet colleagues also came up with plenty of candidates for brand losers, from the Democratic Party, to Russia’s disastrous presentation of Sochi for the Winter Olympics, to U2’s brilliant/horribly intrusive release of “Songs of Innocence” to half a billion iTunes users, to McDonald’s McDilemma I mentioned in my last post, there is a plethora of candidates on both sides of the winner/loser fence this year.

As we pulled our list together, we weeded out the usual suspects: Great brands like Apple, Amazon, Starbucks, Southwest and Nike all had their moments, of course, but those fan clubs are big enough already. When assessing all of the candidates, there were a few criteria we used to guide the selections, which included the following: Those that gained relevance, and those that lost it. Those that had breakthrough product, service, content and customer experiences, and those that did not. Those that did the things that mattered to drive their reputation, and those that neglected to. Those that may not have been on our radar at the beginning of the year, those that were on our radar for the wrong reasons and finally those that are poised for a big 2015 based upon 2014 brand equity gains.

The winners:

AlibabaFor years, the marketing world has talked about China’s economic clout, but with its IPO—the largest ever—Alibaba is the single best power example so far. The company that Jack Ma built isn’t just a Wall Street success, but a consumer tour de force. This year, e-commerce sales on Singles Day, a holiday Ma helped invent, came in at $9.3 billion. (By comparison, the US’s Cyber Monday, its biggest online selling day, totaled just $2.04 billion.) Today, Alibaba disclosed new data showing that 54 out of every 100 Alipay payments come from a mobile device, a number that should only further theongoing discussions with Apple about a possible partnership.

While we wont be seeing Alibaba anytime in the near future in the US, Amazon and eBay should be nervous as they plan to go head to head in emerging markets around the world, where the customer base and retail network more closely resemble its home market.

NetflixA repeat performer, the brand has made us a nation of bingers: Nielsen just reported that Americans are now watching an average of 11 hours of streaming video per month, up from seven hours a year ago. And what it’s already done for binge-worthy original TV programming (Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, and the upcoming Marco Polo) it’s about to do for movies: Hollywood heavyweight Adam Sandler has signed up for four movies, and it is producing the sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But it’s not just buzz that makes Netflix a winner. This year, Netflix’s culture of innovation and talent helped land the company 30th on Forbes annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies with a 47.15% innovation premium, which measures how much investors have bid up a company’s stock price above the value of its existing business. It also was number five on Fast Company’s annual Most Innovative Companies issue.

AirBnBThe sharing economy has tilted cynical consumers into a brand new mode: Trust. As people get more comfortable with letting strangers sleep in their spare rooms, it makes it easier for the company to expand. Today, AirBnB has more nights booked than Hilton and a greater valuation than Wyndham and Hyatt. Yes, it is dealing with legal hurdles in each market it enters. On the one hand those issues present operational/legal obstacles, and on the other could turn all of that “noise” into a marketing advantage: Who are you going to side with: Plucky homeowners, looking to make an honest buck? Or the evil municipal overlords?

The NFLIt’s been a beautiful, terrible year for the NFL. Ratings are strong and gaining. Viewership among women—an audience it has wooed for years—is healthy, accounting for 45 percent of its 150 million fans. And as a result, it’s earning billions from women-centric marketing relationships, including Procter & Gamble. P&G’s Head & Shoulders, Old Spice, Tide and even Cover Girl have NFL–centered strategies.

That’s why it’s hard to believe how the NFL could have bungled the Ray Rice affair so badly, with CEO Roger Goodell coming off as either criminally stupid, managerially inept, massively misogynistic or a combination of all three. The NFL will, of course, survive, even as it struggles to confront growing evidence about long-term brain damage from concussions (and more lawsuits from the player’s union.) But will women continue to buy jerseys and tickets? And will marketing powers like P&G continue to pay top dollar to be linked with perceived indifference to domestic violence?

RadioShackDespite its gutsy commitment to big-ticket ads—including pricey Super Bowl spots—RadioShack’s turnaround is faltering. It doesn’t have enough funding, and it doesn’t have enough ideas: Consumers are more likely to buy electronics from Amazon, Walmart or Best Buy.And, let’s be honest, when you are relying oniconic 80s idols, such as Kid ‘n Play, Mary Lou Retton, Erik Estrada (who must have forgotten to take off his C.H.I.P.S. uniform) and ALF, none of which my Gen Y/Millennial kids knew, total irrelevance is right around the corner.

ComcastThe most hated name in one of the most hated categories (according to ACSI), Comcast is so reviled it’s practically single-handedly inspired the cord-cutting movement. There’s been a social media revolt against its merger. And the viral video of just how bad its customer service is made national headlines earlier in the year. Comcast employees consistently rank their workplace asabsolutely terrible, and, hilariously, their #1 reason? Customer service. Yes, this is a company that is too big to fail, but hopefully not too arrogant to realize that once more high-quality options come into the market, consumers will respond with the choices they make. See T-Mobile’s incredible gains over the past 18 months if you want proof of that.