What is the Interbrand AU+NZ Breakthrough Brands Report?
For more than 15 years, Interbrand AU+NZ has partnered with businesses of all shapes and sizes to help them grow, differentiate, and evolve. A major part of building and developing brands is identifying and understanding the ones shaping the future of business, culture, and the planet.
That’s largely what inspired our inaugural Breakthrough Brands Report, a
list of the 15 homegrown startups, upstarts, disruptors, challengers, problem-solvers, innovators, and category-creators impacting the future of business, culture, and society. We also feature 10 Ones to Watch: local players on the verge of breaking through.
While this report makes its debut in the face of radical change, business challenges, and fluctuating consumer sentiment, the focus is more on the potential and possibility the next decade holds.
Without further ado, here’s the honour roll:
Breakthrough Brands
Afterpay: Pay it in four
Allbirds: Maximum comfort, minimum carbon
Atlassian: Open work for all
Canva: The people’s design platform
DoseMeRx: Personalising medicine
F45: Efficient fitness
Koala: Personality-driven DTC furniture
Modibodi: Undies that undo taboos
Mona: The larrikin Louvre
Movember: Changing the face of men’s health
P.E Nation: Stylish athleisure wear
Sweat: Female-first fitness
Thankyou: The charitable challenger
Who Gives a Crap: Toilet paper that builds toilets
Xero: A beautiful accounting ecosystem
Ones to Watch
Airwallex
Droneshield
Ethique
Heaps Normal
Koh
MILKLAB
Rocket Lab
Sharesies
Sobah
Sunfed
What makes a Breakthrough Brand?
Our report is compiled via qualitative and quantitative research tools, based on five factors from our proprietary Brand Strength methodology: Presence, Direction, Distinctiveness, Trust, Engagement.
The criteria below were also critical:
Origin: Is the brand Australian or New Zealand domiciled? Is the founder
from one of these countries?
Age: Is the brand 10 years old or younger?
Change: Is the brand driving change by responding to a unique marketplace need, generating a new experience for consumers, disrupting an industry, adopting a new business model or developing a new technology?
Growth: Is the brand demonstrating its ability to grow? Is it operating as a successful business? Is it stretching into new product or service categories? Is it stretching into new geographies? Is it attracting top talent?
Buzz: Is the brand grabbing attention and gaining momentum?
Perception: Does the brand have the potential to change the way the world considers Australian and New Zealand brands globally?
What are the defining traits of Breakthroughs?
While every brand’s path is unique, our standouts share some common characteristics that set them apart — ones that form insights that every type of brand can learn from and consider for future strategy.
Built from a cult following
Breakthroughs aren’t always mass-market designed, but expand their relevance to an ever-growing audience, through quality and perceived limited appeal.
Commodity as a status symbol
Are toilet paper and mattresses the new luxury? Breakthroughs can shift perceptions, transforming such products into things we no longer hide from the world, but proudly share.
The rise of the B Corp
The more that we, as consumers, demand more responsibility from our brands, the more that the B Corp becomes a viable business model — and Breakthroughs have largely led the charge.
Uncapitalism
The old formula for many essentials was simple: sell more stuff. Breakthroughs regularly challenge that notion. What if we make less? What if we drive up quality and increase its lifespan?
Open-source generosity
The more organisations share and succeed, the more they learn for themselves. Breakthroughs understand and embrace such an approach.
Remodelling the category
Breakthroughs don’t think in category terms. They start by identifying a human problem to solve and ignore any perceived restrictions that may get in the way.
How will Breakthroughs influence the future?
We’re already one year into a New Decade of Possibility.
For brands to effect change and move the world forward, it takes a focus on three key fundamental traits, which were explored in our Best Global Brands 2020 Report:
1. LEADERSHIP: A FLAG IN THE FUTURE
To thrive in an anxious and uncertain world, brands must know the way, show the way and go the way. Great brands start from their desired future and work back from there, framing each challenge as a step on the road to the future.
2. ENGAGEMENT: A SHARED JOURNEY
Brave leadership thrives on engagement. Highly successful brands don’t just plant a flag in the future, they take people on a shared journey by making moves that resonate with our hopes and fears — they make us want to be a part of their story.
3. RELEVANCE: A SENSE OF BELONGING
People are increasingly demonstrating their values through the brands they choose. Great brands understand the calculated risk it takes to align to causes or beliefs to create affinity with a few. But they don’t back down from their stance.
