Mirror, mirror on the wall, who has the strongest brand in the country?

The agency Jung von Matt has identified the top 50 German start-up brands. Most of the brands are known mainly through clever marketing in social networks like Instagram.

Especially as a young company, you can achieve a lot with good marketing: Awareness, image, new customers. In Germany, the brands Air Up, Vivid and Gorillas have made it to the top three places in this respect, according to the results of a survey by the agency Jung von Matt. Air Up and Gorillas in particular are known for their present advertising. Vivid, on the other hand, surprised in second place, with competitor N26 not even in the top 50. But Vivid also has a strong presence online, with many reviews of the fintech's products coming from Youtubers.

Trade Republic takes fourth place, followed by the delivery services Flaschenpost and Flink. In seventh place is AboutYou, eighth place goes to Ankerkraut, ninth to Ooia and tenth to Everdrop. It shows: no one industry dominates. However, there are clear differences in the various aspects of the survey. If it were only a question of awareness, the first places would have gone to Flixbus, Hello Fresh and AboutYou. Flixbus would be in 46th place and Hello Fresh in the last of the 50 possible places. In the ranking, Jung von Matt included the age of the start-ups to compensate for such an advantage.

Differences are also evident among the top ten: In the uniqueness category, Air Up is far ahead of its competitors. 78 percent of respondents feel the brand is special, with Vivid in second place with 64 percent. It also becomes apparent how much sympathy the Hamburg start-up Ankerkraut receives: In the categories of identification, innovation, likeability and trustworthiness, it is always in the top positions. But it is also the oldest start-up in the top ten, having been founded eight years ago.

Almost all of the companies do strong marketing on social networks like Instagram and actively work with influencers. Hardly any brand has not been in the Stories of German internet stars.

On the weighting of the aspects, Paul-Christian Brenndörfer, who was responsible for the study at Jung von Matt together with Jonas Bailly, explains: "A third of the score is made up of brand awareness and age, another third by the two factors identification and likeability. The last third is determined by softer factors: Trustworthiness, Sustainability, Innovation, Uniqueness and Relevance."

7,538 participants took part in the online survey.