What nonprofits can learn from Interbrand’s 2024 Best Global Brands Report

Every year, Interbrand publishes the Best Global Brands report. It’s not likely to be a staple in the nonprofit brand strategist’s toolkit, but the report offers insights for nonprofit leaders and strategists alike who want to know how brands in the social sector are being impacted by  the changing landscape of commercial brands.

2024’s report centers on a key idea: “When a brand is treated as a strategic asset, it has the potential to drive new forms of exponential growth.” In other words, don’t treat your brand as an expense—use it to drive revenue, build support, and fuel growth.

The report also points to a major shift in culture that may feel familiar: “people’s expectations are changing faster than the fastest businesses.” The constant movement in our frames of reference shapes our expectations and how we make decisions. For-profit companies are now centered less on specific products or features and are driven by the need to develop meaning within their brands and connect with real people in authentic ways. To maintain relevance, the companies in the report treat their brands as their “critical growth asset” rather than relying solely on their products.

These shifts in expectations hit particularly hard for nonprofits that find themselves struggling to keep pace and find ways to matter in a world of rapid change, infinite choice, and constant distraction. Nonprofits have historically focused on their work as their product to drive growth. Now, they must strengthen their positioning by rethinking their brand’s place in an overarching growth strategy.

Nonprofits have the power to be iconic brands—which the authors have defined as: “complex meaning systems with which we have a sensorial, functional, emotional, personal, and even moral relationships.” For nonprofit leaders, this means using tangible, intangible, and aspirational value to further develop the relationship-based aspects of their organization at a brand level. (See my notes on The Five Functions of the Nonprofit Brand.)

It’s natural for people to follow iconic brands into new territory. “Ultimately, we don’t just buy from them—we buy into them,” the authors note. And this is the key goal for nonprofits: Getting people to buy into a bold vision for the future that’s at the heart of the brand.

You can download the report here.

 

Iconic Brands Master Five Key Dimensions

A comparative analysis from the report shows that strong brands build relationships across these dimensions:

• Sensorial (how it looks/feels)
• Functional (what it does)
• Emotional (how it makes you feel)
• Personal (how it relates to identity)
• Moral (ethical alignment)

Nonprofits are built largely around the functional, moral, and emotional dimensions, and they tend to struggle with the personal and sensorial dimensions. They must be adept at engaging people through stories that point toward universal human truths—rooted in their deeply-held beliefs and values, and connected through our emotions. Much of the report points back to these five dimensions, and we’ll see how iconic brands are adapting to people’s ever-changing expectations and addressing a range of emerging challenges with their brand as the center point.

 

Brand as a Growth Engine Rather Than Cost Center

The most successful companies treat their brand as a revenue generator rather than a cost center. It’s a mindset driven by a greater understanding of the brand’s role. For nonprofits, an investment in your brand is an investment in building deeper relationships with people. Rather than the brand being a marketing expense (or worse, just a logo and color palette), it’s a key driver of connection.

Today, we’re now freely giving permission—even inviting—tech companies into our lives. From our physical, mental, and emotional health to our finances, productivity, conversations, knowledge, and ultimately to the last things we control: the use of our time and attention. Companies have been given greater access to people’s lives because they’ve established a web of “strong sensorial, functional, emotional, personal and moral relationship[s].” These strategies are no longer localized solely to their products. They are the brand, and they’re creating deeper connections and building greater trust over time because they’re looked at as a driver of revenue instead of an expense.

 

Brand as Leadership Platform

The report notes that “at a time of distrust towards institutions, government and even NGOs, societal leadership is now seen as a core function of business.” In other words, nonprofits face increasing competition for the moral space they occupy. And businesses have a growing concern: Are they seen as part of the problem—or as part of the solution? Even bigger than that: Are they seen as authentic?

For companies like Patagonia, the brand as a leadership platform centers on both “Protecting our home planet” while catering to a distinctly American ideal: “Do it our way.”

A leadership platform needs to flow through everything the organization does, not just the parts of it that are convenient. This takes a lot of brand self-awareness. For many nonprofits, the organization itself has always been a leadership platform, but there are still many opportunities to strengthen the brand as the leadership platform.

It’s now almost impossible to separate the brand and the business, and the same is true for nonprofits. “A business, its brand, and its leadership are increasingly inextricable,” the report notes. “Transparency and reduced information asymmetry mean that brands are about what a business is and does, not just what it says.” For nonprofits, the brand as a leadership platform is clear. The future of the brand as a leadership platform for businesses presents interesting partnership opportunities for the two—especially when the values and actions of both brands are in constant and purposeful alignment.

 

Influence is Everywhere

“Brands no longer exclusively own their narrative,” the report notes. “At a moment where anyone can post anything—and groups can become movements with scale, at speed—brands need to accept that they are no longer broadcasting, but are instead engaged in a more equitable conversation.”

In the past, the one-way conversation either created customers who wanted to buy, or customers who wanted to be sold to. And that’s no longer the case today. The whole idea of “Your brand isn’t what you say it is; it’s what others say it is” began to change with the development of social media platforms, media democratization, and user-generated content. The dynamics of the conversations we’re having with brands have shifted, and individuals now have greater power in shaping the public perceptions of brands through these new conversations.

 

The End of Competitive Advantage

The report states: “The competitive environment is in perpetual motion. Attractive and lucrative opportunities are more visible to more players and the resources to capitalize on these opportunities are often more available, too.”

Competition and differentiation go hand-in-hand. In the nonprofit and social impact space, we look at competition differently: Competition for resources (like funding, attention, and support) and competition for impact (delivering on a mission as part of a larger vision or movement). Nonprofits face the same challenges as consumer goods brands: overcrowding, imitation, and disappearing differentiation. The marketing team may think the organization is different, but audiences may fail to see it.

For nonprofits, it’s important to know their funders and supporters intimately and build relationships with them. Organizations can no longer solely rely on the historical advantages they may have had, and they should also move past traditional approaches and lean more fully into developing their brands across the five dimensions discussed earlier. This is how they will occupy space in the hearts and minds of people and differentiate themselves.

 

Shifting Frames of Reference

The report also highlights that people’s expectations are not only changing quickly but expectations created in one sector impact all of the others: “Consumers’ frames of reference are shifting. The expectation of Uber’s immediacy, Spotify’s cornucopia and Google’s simplicity ripples across every aspect of life and line of business, raising the threshold on what’s good enough.”

Nonprofits must recognize that their supporters’ expectations are shaped by their experiences elsewhere. And that can create a very high bar. In strategy work with organizations, we look at both the social sector and other sectors to see how they’re shaping people’s expectations. We consider the apps, services, and conveniences people expect. We consider the way things look and how they make people feel. Donors expect an easy user experience with automated electronic receipts. They see data visualizations in the news and on platforms like LinkedIn. Their expectations of nonprofits is on the rise. Applying these experiences from other industries and platforms to the nonprofit sector is where brand strategy meets modern service design, and the potential is limitless.

 

Increased Brand Fluency

“We’re all, to some extent, brand managers. We curate our personal narratives through social media, increasing total fluency and shifting expertise from ivory towers to the street.”

The notion that we are all brand managers is an important one, and it’s connected to Brand Democracy—a concept made popular in the Brand IDeA (read the SSIR article). Brand Democracy is an approach to brand management that actively involves customers and supporters, stakeholders, and employees in shaping the brand’s image. This gives them a voice in how the brand narrative unfolds as well as influence over how people perceive the organization. Rather than trying to manage the brand from the top down, create opportunities for others to tell stories and shape the brand narrative.

 

The Evolving Role of the Brand

Finally, the report discusses the evolving role of Brands across five distinct stages over time. “The role of brands has expanded over time. Originally, brands were identifiers aimed at creating attribution and differentiation. Subsequently, brands became choice drivers, promising and delivering clear benefits in increasingly cluttered and mature markets. Next, the most progressive brands built all-round experiences—not just products or services. The digital revolution and, more specifically, the launch of the smartphone, brought about the birth of ecosystems—branded spaces offering seamless online and offline experiences fueled by real time data. And today, with declining trust in traditional sources of authority in a time of turbulence, brands are expected to show leadership and integrity.”

This evolution suggests brands need to think about operating at all these levels simultaneously—maintaining clear differentiation while also providing experiences, building ecosystems, and demonstrating leadership. It’s important to note that each new stage adds complexity and responsibility rather than replacing previous roles. They’re all important. This framework also helps to explain why brand management has become more complex and why brands need to think more broadly about their role and impact in society.

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Modern nonprofit brands are up against challenges from every direction, but that doesn’t have to stop them from pursuing the status of an iconic brand that creates relationships with people by both speaking and listening. One of the most important takeaways from this report, when it’s distilled down into its most basic element, is the power and importance of authenticity—in who you are, what you do, why it matters, how you show up, and in the quality of the relationships you build. ◼