The Context Advantage: Winning the moments that matter

How Contextual Brand Equity reveals hidden growth opportunities

Imagine exploring a city with only your travel guide’s top ten attractions — you'd capture the highlights but miss the hidden gems and true cultural essence. You'd leave satisfied but somehow unfulfilled, having seen everything yet experienced nothing.

This is how most brands track their performance today.

We are at a critical juncture in brand measurement. When looking only at funnel metrics like awareness and usage, brands see only one part of the landscape. They miss the full context picture that only can reveal unforeseen opportunities. 

Ipsos research reveals as a startling truth: context accounts for over 50% of brand choice. The when, where, and why of consumer decisions really matter in a world with so much choice and habitual behaviour.

Consider Pure Protein, the perfect high protein low sugar bar destined for the gym bag. Despite decent performance in the exercise occasion, Ipsos’ Contextual Brand Tracking revealed the brand had higher latent Brand Desire in meal replacement than in its exercise stronghold. This insight revealed new potential beyond the gym: and this was at the lunch table! 

Understanding Brand Equity in Context provides the full landscape and can reveal new opportunities.

Here is some thought-provoking advice for  brand leaders: 

  • Stop thinking in categories. Start thinking in occasions and moments to re-evaluate your true competitive set.
  • Look beyond your brand’s presumed core occasion to discover hidden opportunities where consumer desire already exists.
  • Track social signals to reveal emerging innovation directions preemptively.
  • Stop seeing portfolio overlap as cannibalisation. Start seeing it as complementary and test by moments what-if scenarios to quantify the business impact of brands’ portfolio optimization.

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