March 8th, 2022, Stephan Shakespeare
MoneySavingExpert.com founder, Martin Lewis, has been sounding the alarm about a potential rise in the energy price cap since last year. The consumer finance journalist has been just as vocal in 2022, and YouGov BrandIndex data shows that the brand he founded in 2003 has emerged as one of the beneficiaries of the crisis.
Current Customer scores for MoneySavingExpert, a measure of whether consumers have visited the site recently, rose from 12.3 to 21.9 between 1 January and 4 February 2022 (+9.6). Those consumers who do visit the site are more likely to emerge with a positive opinion of it. Impression scores for the brand (which track overall positive and negative sentiment) trended upwards by 7.7 points (going from 36.6 to 44.3), while Quality scores increased by 9.1 points, from 28.8 to 37.9 over the same period.
There has also been an uptick in perceptions of the consumer advice site’s value. Scores for this metric have improved over the year so far from 27.3 to 34.4 (+7.1), and Consideration scores (which measure how likely consumers are to use a site in comparison to other sites) jumped from 35.9 to 42.4 (+6.5). Index scores, which track overall brand health, saw a seven-point rise from 30.1 to 37.1 between January 1 and February 4.
Overall, the data shows that consumer sentiment towards Lewis’ site has steadily trended upwards since the beginning of the year. And that’s no surprise since while the rising price cap was only announced this month, speculation has been rife for some time.
Just as an increased demand for Batman’s services suggests that all is not well on the streets of Gotham, an increased demand for the MoneySavingExpert may suggest that Britain’s domestic finances are getting stretched. Householders may well be anticipating that they will need to tighten their belts in the immediate future.
This article originally appeared in City A.M.