The Fastest Growing Brands of 2017

Page Overview:

At Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment, we're fascinated by the brands that break through the noise. This page reveals the fastest-growing global brands of 2017, identified through a Google Trends study of the world's top 100 most valuable brands. By comparing the average weekly search interest from early 2016 to 2017, we highlight the companies that saw the biggest rise in online traction, ranging from fashion disruptors like PrettyLittleThing to legacy names like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Netflix, and rapidly expanding Chinese brands such as Huawei and Ping-An. Utilise this compelling insight to examine the dynamics of brand momentum and the impact of digital interest.

Growing a successful brand often means the difference between business success and failure. Alternatively, working for one of the up-and-coming business elites at the right time can really kickstart your career.

We're interested in identifying which brands have experienced the most significant growth in interest in 2017, so we've conducted a study on brand growth using the top brands worldwide.

Using data from Google Trends, we've researched the 100 most valuable brands in the world to determine which companies have increased their brand presence the most in 2017.

Methodology

Google Trends measures' Search Interest', where search engine data is aggregated around a topic, or in this case, a business, to reflect changes in discussion and interest. Over a given time frame, a topic is scored weekly with a percentage out of 100, where the week with the most discussion and interest in the date range will be given a score of 100%. 

Our data averages the relative search interest score from January 2016 to November 2017, excluding the period from November 20th to December 31st, 2016, to eliminate missing trends in seasonality (many retail brands experience a surge in interest around Christmas). 

If a brand has a higher average relative search interest in the 2017 weekly index, we can assume that its brand has grown year-on-year, as more people are searching for and discussing it online. 

10 Fastest Climbing Global Consumer Brands 2017: 

From our dataset, we've picked out the top 10 consumer brands by the difference in search interest between 2016 and 2017:

Rising Fashion Brands:

The three fashion brands, PrettyLittleThing, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton, top our study, with each of the clothing outlets experiencing a significant increase in search interest between 2016 and 2017.

PrettyLittleThing have grown their brand presence dramatically in 2017, with the women's fashion retailer over doubling their average search interest score.

Since their inception in 2012, Pretty Little Thing has partnered with global celebrities, including Miley Cyrus, Rita Ora, Nicki Minaj, and Kylie Jenner, achieving huge amounts of publicity that have undoubtedly contributed to their recent success.

Similarly, the Italian luxury fashion brand Gucci experienced significant growth in 2017, reporting that its revenues increased by 44.5% for the first nine months of the year. Many suggest that the recent success of Gucci and Louis Vuitton can be attributed to an increase in interest from a younger audience, particularly Millennials.

Growing Chinese Brands:

Four Chinese companies made it into our top 10 fastest-growing consumer brands worldwide: Maotai, China Mobile, Ping An Insurance, and Huawei.

By now, many Westerners will have heard of Huawei, which has been competing with Apple and Samsung in many European markets by selling more affordable handsets.

China's state-owned liquor brand, Maotai, has expanded rapidly in 2017 by launching into new territories, starting last week to trade in 27 countries in Africa, and rapidly expanding abroad.

Ping-An Insurance has also made great strides forward, as of May 2017, becoming the largest and most valuable insurance company in the World.

Unsurprisingly, Netflix also made the cut, now a worldwide household name with over 110 million subscribers and counting.

10 Fastest Climbing Global B2B Brands 2017:

We also segmented our study to discover which business-to-business (B2B) brands grew in interest the most in 2017:

Chinese Growth Again:

Tencent, which owns China's biggest social network, WeChat, as well as the massive gaming franchises League of Legends and Honour of Kings, tops our study, with their relative search interest more than doubling in 2017.

Forbes now reports that Tencent's owner, Ma Huateng, is richer than the founders of Google and is the 13th-wealthiest person in the world.

Similarly, China's largest search engine, Baidu, rose in global popularity, increasing its relative search interest by 14%.

Salesforce, the US cloud-based software technology company, came third for brand growth in the B2B businesses we studied, experiencing a significant rise in search interest of 9% year-on-year.

Conclusions

For both consumer and B2B audiences, Chinese brands featured prominently in our brand growth study, potentially suggesting a further internationalisation of global companies and an increase in the visibility of Chinese brands worldwide in 2017.  

The successful expansion of brands like Maotai and Huawei into markets outside of China has led to a surge in Google searches for these businesses, indicating an increase in brand presence between 2016 and 2017.

The top three growing brands in our study were online fashion businesses, potentially suggesting a growth in e-commerce searches in 2017. This trend continues outside of the top 10 risers, with other online retailers, such as Amazon and Zara, also appearing in the top 20 brands and experiencing an increase in search interest.

Increasingly, consumers are starting their sales journey online.

Tech brands feature heavily in our study. If you are a company looking to recruit in the technology sector, we offer Technology Sales Recruitment services here, or even more specific IT Sales Recruitment or SaaS Sales Recruitment. 

For the full results of our study, visit or download the PDF at the bottom of the page.

Why Work For a Growing Brand?

Particularly in a sales role, working for a brand which is increasing in interest and brand presence can make it a lot easier to close deals and make sales.

Both businesses and consumers want to buy or do business with the most on-trend or innovative companies. People like to buy the latest products, and companies like to work with others that have a product or service effective in solving a business problem. 

Additionally, growing brands tend to consistently and significantly expand their workforce, increasing your development and promotion prospects.

Working for the right brand at the right time can significantly advance your career.

References

1. http://brandz.com/report/global/2017
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Kamani#PrettyLittleThing.com
3. https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2017/11/16/guccis-cracked-the-luxury-code-with-millennials-thanks-to-its-dream-team-of-bizzarri-and-michele/#286dedc41523
4. https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/luxury-fashion-brands-winning-uk-millennials/1424566
5. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2017/11/21/chinese-billionaire-behind-tencent-cracks-the-worlds-top-ten-richest-for-the-first-time/#56839ee8446e

We welcome the use of our data in other studies or articles. Please reference Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment and www.aaronwallis.co.uk as the author of the study.

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Revised and Re-published: 3rd March 2021