What it takes to build a Go-to Brand and how to sustain one

In the world of marketing there’s often confusion between the concepts of “brand” and “business design.” Many annual lists that celebrate the “best” or “strongest” brands conflate these two, attributing business success to brand strength alone. This blurring of cause and effect can obscure the real drivers of performance. Take Nvidia, for example. Its brand has consistently been grounded in a reputation for advanced GPU technology. However, its recent, remarkable success has been driven by the rise of AI and the fortuitous role that GPUs have gained in supporting that advance. Is the Nvidia brand, and therefore the CMO who manages it, responsible for this success? In part, yes. However, this is primarily an engineering success. As Google and others enter the market with credible alternatives, only then will we see how Nvidia’s brand helps retain share and pricing power. This common misunderstanding weakens many brand strength rankings that attempt to value brand performance solely through financial metrics like shareholder value.

That’s why a more reliable starting point is customer choice and behavior. Unlike brand analyses that rely on top-down financial data or executive opinion, starting with the customer gives a unique, data-driven perspective isolating the brand’s true influence on customer decisions, providing a clearer, more actionable view of brand strength. Viewing brand performance from the customer’s point of view separates brand influence from other sources of advantage.

At Lippincott, we’ve amassed insight from more than 150,000 consumers across eight countries and seven years through our annual Go-to Brands Survey for a pure view on brand’s influence on behavior, and in 2025, we published our first-ever Go-to Brands list celebrating 14 of the year’s best U.S. brands.

Go-to Brands are those that win customer purchases when alternatives exist. Data shows these brands grow revenue two to five times faster than their peers and lose only half as much shareholder value during downturns. By isolating brand influence from business design, Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) get clearer insight into what they can control and where the greatest opportunities for improvement lie.

Our view of brand performance builds on the influential work of Clay Christensen and the Jobs-to-be-Done theory,  which we adapted for branding in collaboration with Taddy Hall, a Lippincott senior partner and Competing Against Luck book co-author. The theory posits that customers “hire” companies to make progress in their lives—whether functional (getting a job done better), emotional (feeling better), or social (strengthening relationships). In short – customers don’t just buy a hammer. They buy a solution to help hang their family photographs.

Successful brand building creates a mental shortcut in customers’ minds—a brand heuristic—that explains why they prefer one company over another. This heuristic is shaped by every interaction a customer has with a brand, including marketing communications, word-of-mouth, and increasingly, interactions with intelligent agents. However, personal experience with the brand dominates this perception, which is why modern marketers must focus as much on brand experience as on storytelling.

We simplify Christensen’s and Hall’s theory into two core metrics: Connection and Progress. Connection captures the emotional bond customers feel with a brand, while Progress measures how a brand helps customers achieve something they otherwise couldn’t.

To see where brands fall against these dimensions, each year, we survey consumers about their familiarity with hundreds of brands using our proprietary Brand Aperture^® diagnostic tool. For brands they know, we ask straightforward questions about their perceptions, such as if they “love this brand,” rated on a 1-to-7 agree/disagree scale. We avoid opaque composite scores and instead use transparent, simple measures.

Our approach is category-agnostic, reflecting the increasingly blurred lines between market segments. Importantly, these measures correlate strongly with financial performance. Go-to Brands not only grow revenue faster but also act as safe harbors for investors during economic downturns, confirming Warren Buffet’s view of strong brands as economic moats.

Connection measures the emotional bond customers have with a brand. It can stem from shared values, a sense that the brand understands and cares for the customer, or a reflection of personal identity. LEGO, for example, was featured on our 2025 list and scores high on connection because it’s more than a toy maker; it is a cultural force that inspires imagination and intergenerational play, blending craftsmanship, nostalgia, and storytelling into a powerful emotional experience.

Progress measures how a brand helps customers do things they otherwise couldn’t. This includes functional innovation—better performance, ease of use, greater control—as well as social benefits like community building or positive societal impact. Canva is a prime example, democratizing graphic design by providing an intuitive platform that empowers creators while lowering traditional barriers.

To be a true Go-to Brand, such as Samsung or John Deere, a company must excel in both Connection and Progress. When connection and progress reinforce each other, a brand becomes resilient, with more loyal customers willing to follow it across adjacent offerings or forgive it for any missteps. Brands that rely solely on Connection risk becoming nostalgic relics vulnerable to disruption (think Kodak or Blockbuster). Conversely, brands that offer Progress without Connection may lose customers once their technical advantage fades, as seen with many tech companies (think Myspace or Netscape).

Our Brand Aperture^® framework maps brands into four distinct quadrants based on their Connection and Progress scores, providing a nuanced view of their market position and strategic opportunities:

• Go-to Brands (High Connection, High Progress): These brands excel emotionally and functionally, creating strong loyalty and growth. They are the preferred choice for customers and demonstrate resilience in changing markets.
  
  
• Comfort Brands (High Connection, Low Progress): These brands enjoy emotional attachment but lack innovation or functional relevance. While beloved, they risk disruption if they fail to evolve.
  
  
• Enabling Brands (Low Connection, High Progress): These brands offer strong innovation or utility but lack emotional engagement. Customers may use them out of necessity rather than preference, making them vulnerable to competitors who build stronger bonds. Many tech companies fall here.
  
  
• Transactional Brands (Low Connection, Low Progress): These brands struggle on both emotional and functional fronts, often competing primarily on price. They face the greatest risk of customer defection and market decline.

Understanding where a brand sits within these quadrants helps CMOs prioritize investments—whether to deepen emotional bonds, accelerate innovation, or both—to move toward the Go-to quadrant.

While over two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies use the Net Promoter Score (NPS) to gauge customer loyalty, it has limitations. NPS is effective at moving a brand from poor to good by addressing negative experiences, but its correlation with loyalty drops significantly once scores become positive. In other words, NPS helps brands avoid failure, but does not drive greatness.

By contrast, the combined metrics of Connection and Progress correlate with loyalty at 90%, a fourfold improvement over NPS. NPS measures advocacy—whether customers would recommend a brand—while Connection and Progress capture deeper personal preference and emotional engagement. For brands aiming to be Go-to, these richer insights are essential.

Becoming a Go-to Brand is challenging; sustaining that status is even harder. Consumer expectations continually rise, and brands must keep pace to remain relevant. Within our Brand Aperture^® diagnostic tool, we measure Momentum alongside Connection and Progress by asking customers whether they believe a brand’s best days are ahead.

Momentum captures the real-time force behind a brand’s growth and cultural resonance, spotlighting those not just meaningful, but moving swiftly ahead. A brand on our 2025 Go-to Brands list that exemplifies strong momentum is Affirm, a financial services brand offering fair and flexible financing. Its transparent policies and customer-centric philosophy resonate in financially stressed times, creating excitement about what’s next.

Low Momentum often signals a lack of storytelling about future innovations or benefits. Building anticipation through authentic, substantive narratives—amplified by trusted third parties—is a powerful lever for sustaining brand leadership.

To round out the analysis, Brand Aperture^® also measures a brand’s Value Ratio. Connection and Progress measure the strength of a brand’s appeal, but customers also weigh this against cost. We calculate Value Ratio by averaging Connection and Progress scores and dividing by customers’ perception of whether the brand is priced higher than alternatives.

A high Value Ratio indicates customers believe they receive strong benefits relative to price. However, “higher” is not always better—it depends on the target audience. For example, Dollar Tree scores highest on Value Ratio, reflecting its appeal to price-conscious shoppers. Lego, a premium brand targeting affluent customers, ranks lower on Value Ratio but leverages pricing power to invest in brand building and growth.

In today’s K-shaped economy, where the wealthiest 10% account for nearly half of consumer spending, understanding your brand’s Value Ratio relative to your audience is critical. A Value Ratio too low risks customer defection; too high may mean missed revenue opportunities due to underpricing or underinvestment.

So, if your brand scores low on:

• Connection: Focus on emotionalizing key moments in the customer experience to foster love, not just satisfaction. Daniel Pink’s When offers insights on shaping memorable experiences.
  
  
• Progress: Innovate to differentiate your offering and build community connections. Clay Christensen’s Competing Against Luck is a valuable resource.
  
  
• Momentum: Develop compelling stories about your brand’s future and invest in upper-funnel brand building. Binet and Field’s The Long and the Short of It provides empirical evidence on brand investment effectiveness.
  
  
• Value Ratio: Ensure your pricing aligns with customer perceptions and brand promise. Adjust either pricing or brand strength accordingly.

Connection, Progress, Value Ratio, and Momentum form a robust foundation for understanding and managing brand health. Brands that perform well on these metrics contribute positively to business design and drive revenue growth. By clearly separating brand influence from business design, this framework empowers marketing leaders to demonstrate their impact and secure strategic investment.

In a rapidly evolving marketplace, adopting these insights is essential for building and sustaining Go-to Brands that customers choose again and again.

This article originally appeared in WARC.