John Lewis slips down YouGov BrandIndex ranking

John Lewis and Marks & Spencer’s have both slipped down the rankings in the annual YouGov BrandIndex, which compares BrandIndex Buzz scores for over 850 brands in 32 categories, to reveal the UK brands with the most positive brand noise during the last 12 months.

Department store John Lewis, whose Christmas adverts are now “synonymous with the season itself”, according to the rankings, slipped from second place last year to third, behind budget supermarket chain’s Aldi and Lidl, who won the battle for consumer attention in 2014.

YouGov BrandIndex runs 3,700 daily interviews and asks respondents their views about brands, with Buzz scores worked out by asking if respondents have heard anything positive or negative about a brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news, word-of-mouth or friends and family. Buzz scores measure recent brand sentiment and also indicate the direction of recent awareness.

John Lewis might have been edged out slightly but the BrandIndex still reveals that the high street favourite is still in a strong position as the highest ranking fashion retailer in the overall chart, with Marks & Spencer only managing ninth place, down from sixth last year. YouGov revealed that Marks & Spencer shows “resilience” on the index, despite the negative news regarding its sales figures.

Other brands to make the overall top 10 BrandIndex ranking include the BBC, Dyson, Waitrose, Netflix and MoneySavingExpert.com.