Latest news with #JorgeAguilar
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
PA Consulting's Brand Impact Index: Rivian tops rankings as US consumers pay more for purpose, innovation, and connection
2025 results reveal what the most successful brands are getting right NEW YORK, May 20, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- PA Consulting, the global innovation and transformation consultancy, released today its 2025 Brand Impact Index, ranking Rivian as the top-performing brand in the United States. The Index, based on a survey of 7,000 U.S. consumers and 360 business leaders, evaluates over 350 brands across customer centricity, dependable delivery, intelligent innovation, conscious creation, and community connection. Key report highlights: Consumers prioritize connection over cost. Despite a tightening economy, consumers reject the idea of choosing brands based on cost alone. Nearly 50% of U.S. consumers say they are willing to pay more for brands that understand and respond to their needs—making customer centricity the most influential driver of brand engagement. AI is transforming consumer-brand relationships. While only 35% of business leaders believe they see a return on AI investment, 60% of consumers are comfortable using AI in brand interactions, and 40% believe AI-driven experiences justify a premium—highlighting a growing disconnect between brand perception and consumer reality. Purpose drives loyalty. Consumers are searching for a new type of holistic value – one that builds a better world. 77% of consumers lose respect for brands that put profit before the planet and increasingly seek out brands that align with their values and contribute to a better future. Sustainability is a growth opportunity to build future-ready brands. Despite strong consumer demand, only 15% of business leaders plan to significantly increase investment in sustainability initiatives. This reveals a potentially costly disconnect between consumer expectations and corporate priorities, signaling that organizations are missing a deeper understanding of their customers. Jorge Aguilar, growth strategy expert at PA Consulting, said: "Leading brands recognize that consumers are becoming more intentional with their spending, and these brands are stepping up to offer more than just products. The brands that thrive in this new normal are the ones that go beyond the transaction, meeting customers where they are and delivering real value. Consumers remain loyal to the brands who listen – those that are making a positive impact and building trusted relationships that last." The top ten performing brands in the survey are: Brand Category 1. Rivian Luxury and premium vehicles 2. Samsung Tech ecosystems 3. Little Spoon Baby food 4. SoulCycle Fitness studios 5. Google Tech giants 6. Mercedes-Benz Luxury and premium vehicles 7. Urban Remedy Protein and nutrition 8. SmartSweets Confections 9. Sony Tech ecosystems 10. Oura Wearables Chris Fosdick, growth strategy expert at PA Consulting, said: "Consumers today demand more than just quality; they seek brands that align with their values and aspirations. Rivian has emerged as a standout in this regard, recognized by consumers for its approach to customer centricity and conscious creation, all while providing an exceptional user experience. The top performers in our Brand Impact Index reflect a broader trend – consumers connect most deeply with the brands that innovate to deliver personalized interactions while driving social impact." Methodology The PA Consulting Brand Impact Index ranks 350 market-leading consumer brands with innovative offerings, services, or business models across 17 categories. In late 2024, PA Consulting surveyed 7,000 US consumers, reflecting national diversity across age, gender, zip code, race/ethnicity, income, and household composition. The 2025 edition includes expanded executive insights after surveying 360 business leaders in the roles of director and above at brands across a range of 17 product and service categories to correlate brand strength with revenue, profit, and stock performance. Both perspectives highlight the most important ingredients for brand success in a changing world. About PA Consulting We believe in the power of ingenuity to build a positive human future. As strategies, technologies, and innovation collide, we create opportunity from complexity. Our diverse teams of experts combine innovative thinking and breakthrough technologies to progress further, faster. Our clients adapt and transform, and together we achieve enduring results. We are about 4,000 strategists, innovators, designers, consultants, digital experts, scientists, engineers, and technologists. And we have deep expertise in consumer and manufacturing, defence and security, energy and utilities, financial services, government and public services, health and life sciences, and transport. Our teams operate globally from offices across the UK, Ireland, US, Nordics, and Netherlands. Discover more at and connect with PA on LinkedIn and Twitter. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE PA Consulting Group - US Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Mayor
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Mayor
Why Even User Video Game Scores Can't Be Trusted Any More – How-To Geek
Review bombing skews ratings with irrelevant negativity, harming a game's reputation and affecting future projects. It's hard to trust negative reviews due to review bombing, which only makes it harder to judge a game. Reviews should focus on gameplay, but outside influences often lead to unfairly low scores and mistrust. Review bombing occurs when a group of people works together to flood online review sites with many negative reviews. This is commonly a retaliatory tactic that's used even if the game itself is good. This practice damages the trust in user review systems by skewing a game's overall rating and shaping how people see it, usually for reasons that have nothing to do with a game's overall quality. Review Bombing Has Become Too Common Marcus Mears III / Review Geek The process of review bombing sees a bunch of people, often driven by outside issues, all post bad reviews at the same time. Many use bots or automated tools to make their attack even bigger. This wave of low scores drowns out real criticism and pulls down the game's average rating, which can hurt sales and even affect whether future projects get made. Many games have been hit by review bombing. Big-name games can face backlash over comments made by those involved in production and receive negative reviews that have nothing to do with how the game played or how well it worked. Other games with controversial characters or storylines have also been targeted, like Dragon Age: The Veilguard , showing how easily review systems can be abused because of social or political disagreements. Related Imagine a world where PC game reviews are just reviews. These attacks aren't always about politics. Sometimes, players organize negative review campaigns because they're unhappy with changes to gameplay, feel like the game pushes too many microtransactions, or believe the developers aren't listening to their complaints. For example, Infinity Nikki was recently review-bombed due to a launcher error. A launch error is a bug that would likely have been fixed by reporting it regularly. Players don't need to go to the review section to get attention when developers build games with bug report systems and have X accounts to receive feedback. Many go overboard just because they want others to see that they are angry. These are calls for attention, not a real reflection on the gameplay or quality of the game itself. Review bombing is an overused tactic to show disdain. If anything, the review bombers look like they're just whining when using this technique to complain over a minor issue or the servers going down for a day. Bad Reviews Lose Their Believability Over Time Jorge Aguilar/Activision The growing problem of review bombing has greatly hurt the trustworthiness of negative user reviews for video games. This issue happens when organized groups overwhelm review platforms with large numbers of extremely negative ratings, often for reasons that have nothing to do with the game's actual quality. As a result, it can cause many to distrust negative reviews more than ever. At first, negative reviews might appear to be honest, showing real disappointment from players. However, these get mixed in with many review bombers who want to vent their frustration over something unrelated to the gameplay itself. This makes it very hard to distinguish between real criticism and planned attacks meant to harm a game's reputation. It's gone so far that you can expect negative reviews even if you know the game is good. Related These games occupy a special place in my mind. When Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was released, there was a sudden flood of negative reviews. The game had plenty of issues and a very short campaign. This was expected and warranted because the quality of the game didn't surpass Modern Warfare 2 ; it was more like an expansion pack at full price. When Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 came out, it was a real improvement and did a lot well. However, it faced a similar wave of negativity, where bad reviews at first far outnumbered positive ones, likely because of organized efforts. Even though many of the issues were quickly fixed, players seemed to be focused on bashing a new game in the series for their own personal reasons, not so much on the game's quality. While many people updated their reviews to be more positive, the initial wave of negativity had a lasting effect. This makes you question whether early reviews can be trusted, and reviews matter most when a game first comes out, and there's not much information on them available. Reviews Should Reflect the Game, Not Public Opinion Bioware While it's nice to think reviewers try to stay fair, outside influences often twist how a game's true quality is judged. A review itself is subjective because it's an opinion, so that's okay. What's less than okay is how often reviews lead away from the game itself. Reviews should look at the gameplay, story, visuals, and overall design. However, review bombers often get swayed by the drama around how the game was made or the company's reputation behind it. Sadly, this means the ideal review is often ignored, leading to scores that don't truly show how good or bad a game really is. One big issue is how hard it is to differentiate between professional criticism and public opinion. If people dislike a game's publisher because of issues that aren't directly related to the game itself, like shady business deals or accusations against the developers, such negativity can hurt the reception of a new game. This creates a situation where a well-crafted game gets low scores because people already dislike the company behind it. There are valid reasons not to purchase a game that's embroiled in these sorts of problems, but whether a review score should be reflective of outside drama is another question entirely. Related These action games are hiding some great puzzles. Players' distrust, often fueled by news stories about these controversies, directly shapes how critics see the game. For example, even if a game gets mostly good reviews and has solid gameplay, a title from a company dealing with accusations of ethical issues could still be judged harshly by some players before they even try it, dragging down the final average score. I firmly believe that a publisher should be held to account for unethical and predatory practices. But it's arguably better not to buy the game than to mess with the review system. A lack of sales will kill a great game. Guardians of the Galaxy is a great example of a great game with good reviews that just didn't sell well because of the public's view it had before release. The publisher wasn't trusted, so the game wasn't bought, and the game died—no fake bad reviews needed. Reviews From Individuals Are as Unbelievable as Big Sites Steam The trustworthiness of video game reviews, whether from big review websites or regular players, has become more doubtful over time. Big review sites often give out fairly high scores, often between 7 and 9. This trend makes people worry that issues have been glossed over. I've reviewed and edited reviews of games at professional sites for years. It's not easy to make a real game review, but burning a bridge with a publisher is not smart. I'd say that when it comes to the big review websites, read the review and not the score. Even considering bias or fear of hurting reputation, it's arguable that user review scores can be more untrustworthy than those on big sites. While they seem like they should reflect real player experiences, they can easily be manipulated or influenced by bias. A Minecraft Movie and Five Nights At Freddy's movies are great examples of this. Plenty of regular watchers hated them, but some of that is because they expect Oppenheimer quality from kids' movies. If you go in without the expectation of an adult target audience, you enjoy those movies much more. The growing problem of review bombing has made it much harder to tell the difference between honest criticism and planned, harmful attacks. It makes user reviews less believable and has already hurt the user review system far more than it ever hurt any publishers.
