Brand consultancy Interbrand has launched its 2020 Breakthrough Brands report, unveiling the 30 brands to revolutionise their markets.
Australian-founded graphic design website Canva, high-end digital home gym business Mirror and alt-meat plant foods Impossible Foods are among the list of challenger brands that Interbrand predicts have got what it takes to become household names.
This year’s Breakthrough Brands cohort follows in the footsteps of Deliveroo, Peloton and Glossier (2016) and Slack, TaskRabbit, and Flipkart (2017) tipped for success in Interbrand’s two previous reports.
Since the first report in 2016, innovation has shifted from the tech start-up epicentre of Silicon Valley and has moved away from massive software and marketplace enterprises that simply connected buyers to sellers via a digital platform.
There is also a significant shift in leadership within the 30 brands where 27% have a CEO who is a person of colour and 30% have a CEO who is a woman, compared with only a 10% CEO representation for either demographics in Fortune 500 companies.
Five themes of innovation emerged from the 2020 Breakthrough Brands:
- Powered by community: serving thriving subcultures like Stock X for sneakerheads or nurturing community through built-in interactive options like Mirror – the sleek interactive home gym that looks like a mirror when not in use.
- Sustainable consumerism: tackling complex infrastructure solutions for corporations that are too entrenched to reimagine entire components of their business – such as Loop, the recyclable and reusable packaging company.
- Values as status symbols: catering for the shift from overt consumption of expensive items to nonvisible, highly expensive goods and services. Brands such as dosist – the stylish cannabis vape and delivery company.
- Digital first health: helping people control their mental, emotional, and physical well-being outside the confines of traditional healthcare – as seen with the wearable tech of the Elvie breast pump or Maven, offering a holistic approach to fertility, pregnancy and postpartum care.
- Playful brands: Self-expression, creativity and rule-breaking design and marketing are hallmarks of many of the 30 Breakthrough Brands. From alt-meat company Impossible Foods through to millennial make-up brand Milk Beauty.
Interbrand CEO Nathan Birch says the report has a proven track record of predicting those brands that have the potential to go mainstream.
"These brands are at a critical point in their journey – the stakes are high but the opportunities even greater," Birch says.
"We’re eager to see how these brands adapt to today’s challenges and how Australian companies can leverage trends like community and sustainability to also achieve Breakthrough status.”
Interbrand’s Breakthrough Brands 2020
A24: Indie studio darling
Cadre: Digital stock market for alternative assets
Canva: The Adobe disrupter
Chime: Biggest digital bank
Devoted: Individualized health plans
Dosist: Innovative marijuana pen
Elvie: Women’s wellness for 21st Century
Flexport: Logistics disruptor
Ginkgo: Biology programmers
Impossible: meat-alts for everyone
Legalist: Tech-savvy small business advocate
Loop: Sustainable circular service model
Maven: Holistic care throughout the childbirth process
Milk Make-up: Gen Z’s cult makeup brand
Mirror: Sleek solution for at-home fitness !: Postmodernist hype art brand
Neon: Risk-takers and tastemakers in film Oatly: Mainstreaming oat milk
RIVIAN: True utility all-electric vehicles
Seedlip: First distilled non-alcoholic spirit
Snowflake: Cloud data superhero
Stock X : The sneaker stock market
Teachers Pay Teachers: Teacher knowledge exchange Teladco: Pioneering telemedicine services
Action Network: Digital-native sports betting
The Citizenry: Home goods for the responsible global citizens The Information: Exclusive Silicon Valley content
The Real Real: Seamless, chic thrifting
Third Love: Seamless, chic thrifting
Turo: User-to-user car rentals
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