Is staying in still the new going out?

The White Company has been one of the stand-out performers this year, rising 21 places since 2022. 

We recently launched BrandVue’s Most Loved Retail Brands 2023 report, providing insight into which retailers UK adults have the closest emotional connection with.

Drawing on findings from the report, we delve into the Home & Lifestyle sector, taking a look at how Brand Love for players in this space has flourished since last year.

Given the current economic climate it is perhaps unsurprising that consumers are cutting back on going out. According to our latest Consumer Compass report, half of UK households (50%) have cut down on non-essential and leisure spend to save money.

In turn we’ve seen the Home & Lifestyle sector continue to benefit from consumers investing more time and money into their homes. While M&S and IKEA have maintained their spots as the most loved brands in the sector for the second year running, the biggest increases in Brand Love have come from a fascinating mix of other brands.

Further analysis of data from BrandVue Retail, our daily brand tracking tool, suggests that the key risers in the Home & Lifestyle space can be divided into two broad groups:

Value without compromise brands

The Range, Dunelm and Homesense have each maintained strong Brand Love in the last 12 months despite a challenging trading environment, and continue to be praised by consumers for offering great prices alongside other important benefits.

The Range utilises social media and local PR to showcase new products as they come into store. The effectiveness of this strategy is demonstrated through the number of consumers associating the brand with a broad product offering and good value for money – 43% and 34% respectively.  As a result we’ve seen The Range climb an impressive 7 places YoY in our Most Loved Retail Brands League Table, now sitting at 22.

Similar to The Range, Dunelm has seen Brand Love continue to grow over the last two years; perhaps down to consumers affiliation with the brand being ‘for people like them’ (32%), echoed in Dunelm’s “Dun your way” tagline.

Homesense, although slightly lower down our Top 100 League Table at no.40, is one of our biggest risers this year – climbing 17 places. Over this period the brand has also seen growth in Brand Affinity and Trust, perhaps supported by an increase in CSR activity, such as the brand’s partnership with Comic Relief for Red Nose Day.

Premium style and quality brands

Our second group of brands includes players targeting niche consumer groups with a more premium offer.

As discussed in our BrandVue Retail report, The White Company has been one of the stand-out performers this year, rising 21 places since 2022.  Through its messaging, portfolio, and targeting of premium gifting occasions such as Mother’s Day and Valentine’s day, the brand is able to associate itself in the minds of consumers with desired values like “Premium” (33%), “Quality” (26%) and “Stylish”(27%).

Additional brands in this group experiencing uplifts in love include ProCook and Simba. Despite facing commercial headwinds over the last year, both brands have managed to grow their customer bases and have also recently achieved B Corp status, highlighting their environmental and social sustainability efforts.

Although the Home and Lifestyle sector has not been immune to the challenging trading conditions experienced across the economy, key players have demonstrated encouraging levels of Brand Love. We believe that their innovative and creative response to the current climate, underpinned by a customer-centric ethos, will set them in good stead for the long-term, and offers encouragement for other consumer-facing brands.

BrandVue’s Most Loved Retail Brands 2023

Our latest BrandVue Retail report is a recognition  and celebration of the most emotively connected retail brands in 2023.

The research uses BrandVue, Savanta’s daily brand tracking tool, to draw insight from over 96,000 consumers across the UK’s top 200+ retail brands and then rates the top 100 brands according to how loved they are by the public.

To see which brands made it to the Top 100 league table, as well as more retail trends and insights, download the free report here.