Age doesn’t hinder brand growth

Is it really only young upcoming brands that thrive or are their more established peers holding up? We examined the performance of 169 top three brands in terms of market share in the UK, 28% of which are more than 100 years old while only 5% have been launched within the latest 20 years. Hence it seems to take decades to crack the top three.

• Almost every second brand amongst top 3 brands increased its share since 2011 – growth is as likely for leading brands as for smaller brands (remember that we speak about a period where PL again gained share in the UK).
• Brand growth amongst top 3 brands happens to brands of all ages.
• Only brands between 50-100 years in business seem to be a bit lower: We doubt their slightly lower likelihood of growth is evidence of a true midlife crisis but rather a statistical aberration!!

While we see a lot of activity by younger brands in lower share tiers (see our Rising Star blog entries) the leading players are often established incumbents able to grow share as much as any other brand.