As marketing’s role evolves, CMOs are taking greater responsibility for innovation, seeing this as an area in which they can increase their influence. While research suggests that leadership in innovation doesn’t correlate strongly to perceived brand strength for B2B companies, this remains a key area for B2B brand imaging. So most brands would probably want to be featured on this recent list from Brand Keys [pdf]…
The rankings show the results of a survey of 900 B2B consumers who were asked to name the companies and brands they feel are leaders in technological innovation.
Sitting atop the list this year is Alphabet, swapping places with last year’s top brand, Apple. Amazon is next in the third spot, switching places with IBM. Siemens – one of this year’s big risers – climbs 4 positions to round out the top 5.
These brands are leaders not only because they provide technological solutions to business and marketing issues, but also because they’re seen as better able to meet customer expectations in the realm of technology, says Brand Keys.
There were 4 new entrants to the top 20 this year: Salesforce.com (#10); HubSpot (#16); Mindbody (#17); and Equinix (#18). Sliding off the list were Dell, HP, Uber and YouTube.
Meanwhile, aside from Siemens, GE (+5 to #7) had a strong showing this year. By contrast, Samsung (down 7 spots to #12) and SAP (down 5 spots to #15) had the biggest declines of the top 20.
Obviously, this list isn’t populated solely by traditional business brands, but instead has many consumer-oriented brands (the most innovative brands according to consumers – the B2C list – is available here). After all, B2B buyers are people, too.
Check out the full list in the above chart.
