Gartner announces the 2021-22 Genius Brands

On the final day of the Gartner Marketing Symposium and Xpo, the consulting firm released the names of the 2021-22 Genius Brands. The annual ranking of Genius Brands are determined based on the Gartner Digital IQ Index which focuses on website, digital marketing channels, social marketing and path to purchase, but measures hundreds of touchpoints within each of those dimensions.

Gartner analyzed over 1,300 brands across 15 industries, including non-Gartner clients, with inclusion in the survey being based on volume of digital activity. Forty-five (3%) of the brands analyzed were awarded Genius status, the others being classed as Gifted, Average, Challenged or Feeble.

The 2021/22 Geniuses. A complete list of the Genius Brands can be found here. Among the household name brands to qualify are:

• Auto: Ford, Mercedes-Bez, Toyota.
• Beauty and Personal Care: L’Oréal Paris.
• Food & Beverage: Ben & Jerry’s, Folgers, Red Bull.
• Multi-Brand Retail: Amazon, The Home Depot, Walmart.
• Retail Banking: Capital One, Chase Bank, Discover Bank.

Why we care. On the one hand, few surprises here. Amazon is a Genius when it comes to digital marketing? You don’t say. On the other hand, this is a reminder of how important a brand’s digital IQ is these days. A brand can wait for Gartner to come along and determine whether it’s a Genius or just Feeble, or brands can start evaluating their own IQs, benchmarking them against their competitors, even using less robust analytical tools than Gartner brings to the table.

About The Author

Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space. He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020. Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.