NEW YORK — In terms of brand equity, Walgreens leads the field among retail pharmacy operators, including drug store chains and mass merchants, according to a survey by Harris Interactive.
The market researcher said Monday that its 2012 Harris Poll EquiTrend study, which analyzed responses from 38,500 consumers on key measures of brand health across industries, found that U.S. consumers are more likely to make pharmacy purchases at traditional drug stores like Walgreens, CVS/pharmacy and Rite Aid than at the pharmacy departments of mass merchants such as Walmart, Target, Costco and Kmart.
In this year’s EquiTrend poll, Walgreens took the top spot as the study’s first-ever Drugstore Brand of the Year, with CVS and Rite Aid finishing second and third, respectively, in this new category for 2012, Harris Interactive said. Top scores for familiarity and purchase consideration lifted Walgreens to the top, the researcher noted.
Walgreens tallied an Equity Score of 69.92 in the study’s drug store category, besting CVS/pharmacy (67.40) and Rite Aid (62.49). Harris Interactive said the drug store category average score was 60.54, and the other pharmacy brands in the study — Costco Pharmacy, Kmart Pharmacy, Target Pharmacy and Walmart Pharmacy — ranked below the average.
On the mass retailing side, Target came in first as the Value Retail Brand of the Year with an Equity Score of 71.30, well above No. 2 Walmart (66.77) and the category average of 62.04. Other mass retail brands in the study, with scores falling short of the category average, included Dollar General, Family Dollar, Kmart, Marshalls and T.J. Maxx.
Other retail store categories in the study included convenience stores (Speedway came in No. 1), department stores (Kohl’s No. 1), luxury department stores (Nordstrom No. 1) and gasoline retailers (Costco No. 1).
An annual tracking study, the Harris Poll EquiTrend measures and compares the brand health for more than 1,500 brands in over 50 categories. It evaluates brand engagement in such areas as brand equity (familiarity, quality and purchase consideration), connection to consumer (emotion, trust and performance), and buzz (generating conversation among consumers online, in social media and offline).
