BusinessWeek recently announced the Top 25 Innovators for 2010 in a slideshow on their website and it’s interesting which companies bubbled to the top and which companies didn’t/never do in these types of surveys. The Top 25 is part of a broader unit of work which looks at the Top 50 innovators globally.
The survey of “global senior executives” is an annual activity which is done in partnership with Boston Consulting Group and has been tracked since 2005. The methodology purposefully did not define innovation, which in and of itself is difficult to define. After reviewing the results, looking at the content provided as proof-points in BusinessWeek’s online summary of the returns, it looks like brand spend had a significant influence on the list, since nearly every company in the Top 25 is also a Top 100 spender in media.
So while we as marketers are always looking for the ROI of brand investment, it definitely appears that the ROI for these companies is realized when people recall their brands in these types of surveys over competitors.
