Home grown brands outshine global brands: MPG's global survey

The analysis also shows that while Indian consumers are one of the most receptive consumers globally, Indian companies remain ambivalent over the relevance of sustainability on their brands.

Brand Sustainable Futures is the group's first to market framework to help companies build strong and meaningful brands using sustainability as a key platform. The model evaluates, tracks, and compares how a firm's sustainable endeavours resonate with consumers and the consequent impact they make on its brand equity.

The research, the largest of its kind, covered over 30,000 consumers in 9 countries: Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Mexico, Spain, UK and the US. It explored 150 brands across 10 different industries.

Key consumer trends in India include:

- The main barrier to buying responsible products in India is availability and lack of information

- Indian consumers appear to have higher than average expectations of companies in terms of sustainable endeavour and there is a stronger feeling of empowerment. 70% feel that their actions can make a company more responsible, compared to 57% on average.

- Appreciation for companies that partner with a charity or NGO has increased since 2009, with 83% agreeing this year compared to 73% in 2009

Globally it was found that the vast majority of mainstream consumers would not care

if two thirds of today's global brands disappeared in the future.

MPG's 2010 global analysis also demonstrates the more sustainable the brand is perceived, the more meaningful it becomes to consumers. MPG concludes that the 33 percent of brands that are considered meaningful are redefining and rebuilding their relationships with consumers through sustainability.

To help companies take a corporate temperature check, the project's proprietary metric ' the Brand Sustainable Futures Quotient (BSF QuotientTM ), allows a company to assess, track and compare its brand's sustainable health over time. The higher the BSF QuotientTM the more sustainable the brand's health is perceived to be.