It’s that time of year when lists ranking brands—most valuable, loved, powerful, you name it—are everywhere.

Branding consultancy Siegel+Gale has added another to the mix. Its World’s Simplest Brands survey gauges, well, how “simple” some of the world’s biggest companies are—at least in the eyes of consumers.

• Brian Rafferty, Siegel+Gale’s global director of business analytics and insights, told Marketing Brew the company surveyed more than 15,000 people in nine countries, about 2,000 in each market.
• Respondents were asked to rate a brand’s simplicity in terms of its communications, products, services, and experiences compared to its peers, explained Rafferty, ranking top brands across categories like electronics, retail, and media.
• Scores were weighted differently depending on responses; for instance, respondents who consider themselves “users” of a particular brand were given more weight than those merely “familiar.”

Marketing Brew talked to Rafferty about the study’s findings + why he thinks certain brands rose to the top.

Top prize: Globally, respondents ranked Google as the simplest brand. But what’s simple about a company that makes literal billions of dollars in revenue each quarter? According to Rafferty, its top ranking could stem from the fact that the “main front of Google,” aka its search engine, hasn’t changed all that much (from a user’s perspective) over the years, even as the company has expanded into different areas. “The general person going onto their Google search bar isn’t actually thinking about all of the other things that Google does,” he explained. Or how much data it’s collecting.

Silver medal: Netflix took second place after coming in first in 2018, the last time Siegel+Gale ran the study. But in the US specifically, Hulu nabbed second, pushing Netflix to third. Rafferty thinks it’s interesting that Hulu did a “tiny bit better,” but he sees the differences between the two as “relatively minimal.” After all, both provide ad-free offerings, which he said contributed to their high scores. “No matter how innovative advertisers try to get, typically consumers don’t like the idea of their experience being interrupted by advertising.”

Commerce: Amazon ranked eighth on the global list and first in the US. Of course, that “simplicity” has come at a cost, as the company’s faced lots of criticism the past couple of years over accusations about how its employees are treated. “There’s lots of negatives about Amazon regarding working conditions and other pieces, so I don’t want to say that Amazon is the end all and be all of everything,” Rafferty noted. “But I do think, at least in terms of the consumer experience, they have been relentlessly focused on always making sure that the consumer is managing to get what they want in the easiest way possible.”

Odd one out: Despite its sleek designs, Rafferty said Apple “never has done all that well” in the study, in part because of its “multiplicity of models” that force people to buy dongles and other accoutrements for its products to function properly.—MS

What’s neon, chrome, and full of sodium and swag? McDonald’s collab with the mega-famous K-pop group BTS that debuted in May. A continuation of the fast-food chain’s celebrity-endorsed meals, the finished campaign came complete with an 80s-themed title card in the online spot and intergalactic look that somehow merged the internationally beloved band and brand.

Marketing Brew spoke with Wieden+Kennedy art director Nik Reed—who “spent days” breaking down BTS music videos—about his inspirations for the campaign, which plugged the band’s “signature order”: McNuggets, fries, and Sweet Chili and Cajun dipping sauces. See a few of his inspirations below, or read the full piece here.

Louis Vuitton: Some McDonald’s BTS meals came in a custom brown bag featuring the group’s logo in a formation that took inspiration from the iconic monogram of the French fashion house. Soon, fans posted photos of the bags stitched into masks and dresses. “Someone’s grandma made their granddaughter a dress out of the BTS bag, which is something that we could have never predicted,” Reed shared.

@chromeandlightning: Graphic designer Jarred Hageman made the title sequence for the campaign. His work, heavy on the glowing lines of nostalgia and cold-chrome reflections, was a big inspiration for Reed. “He does some of the best 80s work that I’ve seen, like ever…I don’t know anyone better than him.”—RB

TVs are getting smarter. Or, at least, the ads are. Samsung, the world’s biggest TV manufacturer, just unveiled a program that will allow advertisers to target specific, curated TV audiences using their first-party data.

The Samsung Onboarding Partner Program, as it’s called, will work with data-management companies like Adobe, LiveRamp, and Oracle to target people who watch ad-based video-on-demand (AVOD) sites. Some of the most popular AVOD sites include YouTube and Hulu.

Brands will be able to upload their own first-party data and combine it with Samsung Ads’ in an effort to improve the effectiveness of the campaign. In an analysis of 2021 campaigns, Samsung conversion rates were 161% higher for brands that used their own data compared to those that didn’t, according to the company.

The unveiling comes as more marketers and advertisers are moving away from third-party cookies and as AVOD streaming is on the rise.

• A recent TVision study found Americans spent more time watching ad-supported platforms in 2021 than subscription-based video-on-demand (SVOD) sites.
• While Netflix—king of the SVODs—was the top platform in Q3 based on its share of viewer time, the study found that when combining YouTube and YouTube TV, their share actually surpassed Netflix’s.—KH

The Tok: A guide to everything TikTok in 2022. Yes, we’ll be reading this as well.

The ’Gram: Instagram asked Gen Z to talk 2022 trends. See what they had to say.

Time management: Here’s how to make a social posting schedule, because though you might want to tweet in the middle of the night, your brand probably shouldn’t.

Gather round: Whether you’re hosting a virtual meeting for 50 or an online conference for 50,000, Hopin is the all-in-one event management platform you need to know. Get the unique event of your dreams with Hopin.*

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Stat: 60% of US adults have a favorable opinion of Marvel Comics, according to Morning Consult, so they’ll probably keep making those movies.

Read: Political groups are taking out ads in President Joe Biden’s local Delaware newspaper, The News Journal, to reach the man who is “likely the paper’s most famous reader,” per Politico.

Quote: “We will take appropriate action and will be carefully evaluating any future NFT programs. This bad actor is using the McDonald’s brand to promote a deplorable message that is wholly inconsistent with our values, which is unacceptable,” said a McDonald’s spokesperson to Ad Age, after someone encrypted a racist message on the brand’s McRib NFT.

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Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• Instacart data shows which viral TikTok recipes led to spikes in ingredient purchases
• Marketers discuss the most overlooked industry trends of 2021
• A recap of our December CTA event