Brand Empathy

Charlie Nelson
director foreseechange
June 2003

As part of a program of market and social research into the booming older population, Brand Empathy ratings are being measured by GreyGold (www.greygold.com.au), a joint initiative of foreseechange and Worthington Di Marzio.

The Empathy measure is based on how well organizations are perceived to understand needs and how well they communicate.  The organizations rated so far are Coles, Woolworths, McDonalds, Myer Grace Bros, David Jones, the four major banks, Australia Post, The federal government and state governments.  While detailed results are confidential to clients, some of the findings include: 

• Retailers have established significantly higher Empathy with consumers of all ages than have banks;
• Banks are on a par with governments;
• Some of these organizations have significantly lower Empathy with older consumers than they do with younger consumers;
• Only one of the organizations has significantly higher Empathy with older people than with younger people;
• One retailer has established significantly higher Empathy with older consumers than has its main competitor.  The gap is much narrower for younger consumers.  The retailer with the better Empathy with older consumers is performing much better in the marketplace.

The Empathy scale ranges from zero to 10, where zero is very poor, 5 is neutral, and 10 is very good.  Empathy was measured using a nationally representative random sample of 400 adults in May 2003.  The average Empathy across the 12 organizations was 5.12, while the worst was 3.48 and the best was 7.57.  The average Empathy score for governments was 3.80, for banks it was 3.97, and for retailers it was 6.06.

Future research on Empathy will include rating more organizations, including manufacturers, and decomposing Empathy into its constituent parts.

More information on the initial report is available at www.greygold.com.au/greygoldmine.htm.

Postscript: additional organisations rated include Telstra, Optus, Qantas, Virgin Blue, Ford, Holden, Toyota, Channel 7, Channel 9, Channel 10, ABC TV, Kelloggs, Coca Cola, St George Bank, KFC, Pizza Hut, Priceline, Country Road, Dick Smith Electronics, and Harvey Norman.