Monzo joins this year’s Kantar BrandZ Top 75 Most Valuable UK Brands rankingat #72, valued at $680M, a huge achievement for a brand in its infancy. The brand launched into the banking sector in 2015 and was among the first to challenge traditional high street banks. With a user base of over 7 million in 2023, Monzo is one of the UK’s homegrown unicorn brands.
While Monzo currently lacks the size and scale of many traditional UK banks, its potential for future growth is clear. Kantar quantifies this in its new BrandSnapshot tool, which paints a picture of the banking sector and how its seen by consumers. Monzo’s brand equity is promising, with clear momentum to create value in the future.
Difference makes the difference
How has it built these perceptions so quickly? Monzo differs dramatically from other UK banks. Strong brands have three essential qualities:
- Meaningful: meeting peoples’ needs both functionally and emotionally
- Different: offering things others don’t and leading the way in their category
- Salient: coming to mind readily at key decision making moments
While many large banks have strong Salience, often relying on their heritage and awareness, Monzo is invested in building Meaningful Difference. Offering a unique range of features in its app, Monzo brought something completely new to banking, earning its status as the most Different brand in the category. In recent years, Monzo has strengthened its Meaningful and Salient associations, becoming more relevant to people’s lives as they learn about the services it offers.
Monzo’s sense of Difference includes a highly distinctive visual identity. Its recognisable coral card has easily built awareness. But a sense of Difference comes from more than just being visually distinctive.
I’ll Monzo you
Monzo supports its sense of Difference in several ways:
- App functions like immediate spending notifications and frictionless peer-to-peer transactions to make saving, spending and budgeting easier; the phrase “I’ll Monzo you” is a favourite with customers
- A jargon-free, inclusive tone of voice present across all its touchpoints which contrasts with the formal corporate speak expected of traditional banks
- Regular feedback collection via its online forum to improve services and launch new innovative tools; the latest is an industry-first ‘call status’ tool to prevent scams
- A strong presence on social media, tapping into current trends and popular memes
These characteristics centre around making life easier for the customer. This is reflected in the Competition and Markets Authority recent league tables, where the brand topped satisfaction ratings over all other UK banks, with 80% of customers claiming they would recommend Monzo to friends and family. The implications of Monzo’s success are clear: brands need to identify their difference, ensure it plays a meaningful role in peoples’ lives and amplify this at every opportunity.
Read more about the Kantar BrandZ Most Valuable UK Brands in the new report, available now at www.kantar.com/campaigns/brandz/uk.
For an overarching view of brand performance, Kantar has launched a new, free interactive tool powered by BrandZ’s wealth of data and Meaningful Different Salient framework. Kantar BrandSnapshot delivers intelligence on 10,000 brands in 40+ markets, offering a quick read on a brand’s performance in a category. Explore for free on Kantar Marketplace today.
