ISTOCK FEBRUARY 2017 BCBUSINESS 33
W
ant to make friends and inf luence
people? Don't just stand there—be
engaging. The same goes for the front-
runners in our fourth annual rank-
ing of B.C.'s top brands, which sees
a few names surge and others take a
tumble. In its survey for this year's list,
research partner Ipsos found that engagement was
the most powerful driver of brand in•uence.
"Engagement is the notion of people interacting
with brands," says Michael Rodenburgh, executive
v ice-president for Western Canada at Ipsos.
"The old school of marketing tells us that people
consume or buy brands, but I think the age of
marketing has transformed into one where
people personify themselves with the brands that
they consume. And that requires, to a certain extent,
a conversation and a level of connecting with
brands that transcends just being a consumer."
Ipsos—which de‡ines inf luence as making an
impact on people's lives by eliciting strong feelings,
inspiring them to act and creating something they
identify with—uses a long list of criteria to measure
engagement. Among them: willingness to watch
a brand's online ads, anticipation about what the
brand will introduce next and a sense that it repre-
sents qualities the consumer wants to re•ect.
For Vancouver brand strate‹y adviser David
Allison, engagement means helping someone feel
like they belong. He cites Apple Inc., whose stores
encourage visitors to stay awhile even if they have no
plans to buy anything: "There's a brand that engages
people, that has said, 'Come and be part of our fam-
ily, man. Come and hang out in here.'"
As Allison points out, many of the brands in
the ranking are entertainment-oriented, from the
Rules of
Engagement
IN OUR LATEST RANKING OF THE BRANDS THAT
MATTER TO BRITISH COLUMBIANS, ENGAGING CUSTOMERS
TAKES ON A NEW IMPORTANCE
S t o r i e s b y N I C K R O C K E L + M A R C I E G O O D + C H R I S T O P H E R D O N V I L L E
the
