Why EE is an object lesson in telco brand-building
In a blog post last month, BT’s CEO Marc Allera announced that BT will adopt EE as its flagship brand for consumers, while BT will be the main trade name for enterprise and global customers.
BT has always let EE exist as a standalone brand since their acquisition in 2016. During the period since the merger, EE has gone through a period of significant growth, according to YouGov's brand tracking and measurement tool, BrandIndex.
Data from YouGov BrandIndex shows that EE grew its Index scores among customers by 64% between 2016 (Index score of 31.3) and 2021 (51.3). Index scores are a measure of overall brand health calculated by taking the average of a brand’s Impression, Quality, Value, Satisfaction, Recommend and Reputation scores.
What’s encouraging for the mobile carrier is that these annual increases come across virtually every age group. EE’s Index scores have edged up among customers aged 18 to 34 and those aged 50 and over every year since the acquisition. The brand does well among customers aged 35 to 49 too and apart from 2021, managed to grow its brand health among this segment for the past six years.
Commenting on the recent news BT and EE news, YouGov’s Global Head of Telecoms Duncan Stark says, "The data certainly backs up BT’s claim that EE 'captures the hearts of customers across all demographics' and what stands out to me is the brand’s strong Recommend scores among customers. This is a good measure of consumer affinity and advocacy for a brand because it shows whether people would recommend a brand’s services to friends or colleagues."
Similar to the age trends found around EE’s Index scores, the mobile carrier’s Recommend scores have improved year-over-year among UK consumers since 2016.
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