Better Measurement for Stronger Brands

If I sum up the conversations I have had over the many years (and many grey hairs) that I have been in market research, I would have to say that many of my clients openly acknowledge that they are in the business of building brand resonance. More eloquently put, and to paraphrase these clients, the primary goals for their brands are to intercede in the mind of the consumer, to build or strengthen relationships, and to intervene in the aspects of the marketplace in such a way that demand for the brand is optimized, and grows over time.

That said, my clients would follow that up with a reference to the need for accountability with business decisions and a need to measure business outcomes effectively and efficiently. Despite continuing conversations about the more demanding, challenging and complex world of marketing communications, I am constantly reminded that the objective of measurement is still, and should remain, conceptually simple.

Survey metrics need to be related to business outcomes that allow brand managers to understand if the communications are maintaining or improving the brand relationship. So, the goal of measurement should be to align with what people actually do in the marketplace, so that marketers can determine if their marketing efforts are in fact delivering ROI. This will ensure that once you have identified what will drive improvements in the measures, you can be certain that market share gains will follow (providing you can implement your strategy successfully, of course).

After years of developing and refining the `Brand Value Creator' measurement system at Synovate, it has been empowering to join with an organization, Ipsos ASI, that is philosophically similar and that approaches brand measurement in a similar way.

Our philosophical similarities will allow us to develop an even better approach together, because we have learned several of the same key lessons about how to ensure positive impacts on brand performance through better measurement.

Focus on measuring what matters

Simple enough - focus on the commercial purpose of the work.

Because what is the point of debating how to improve a single number if nothing changes in the real world? Have you ever sat through a presentation that has focused on several lines that are acting as `leading', `intermediate' or `soft' measures of campaign success? These measures can and do move, but the result is that often nothing actually changes about the brand's performance in the marketplace.

Design your measurement system with economy in mind

People aren't as willing to answer surveys as much as they once did. And, business managers want to spend less and get more. The key is to get to the core brand measures quickly, for every brand, for every respondent in the study. Then you can carve out the real estate for the diagnostics you need to help you understand the influences on the brand measures, be that specific campaigns, brand image or competitor activity.

Make it all about the individual

Measurement should link to business outcomes at respondent level, so that the true influences of activity can be determined amongst all of the influences on the brand relationship.

Respondent level data is a much ignored aspect of market research. However, it is possible to have measures that are valid at the overall market level, but wrong about individual respondents.

For example, whilst brand metrics might correlate well with market share, they might be wrong about who the genuinely committed users are. If results are valid at the respondent level, it means there are more powerful stories within the data to reveal insights for important questions like:

• Who are our weakly committed users also using? And, why is that brand beating ours?
• Who are those individuals who genuinely want to use the brand? By contrast, who is being forced to use the brand due to market effects (i.e. for affordability or availability)?
• Are the individuals who desire our brand in the high value segments? Or do we have it backwards?

But focusing on the individual is not enough - Make sure to know who they are and what is important to them (versus pre-defining who they are)

Consider leveraging an approach where respondents define their own competitive set (typically the brands that they use or consider). This ensures they are rating brands that mean something to them, rather than brands we see as competitors but are irrelevant to that particular respondent. Look at the relative ratings of brands rather than just an absolute score in isolation. Allow for ties, because in reality, people may find competing brands equally attractive and would, in an ideal world, share purchases evenly across those options.

Make sure consumers care

Ensure you measure whether a brand meets consumers' personal, social or functional needs better than the alternatives - because this is how brands develop resonance and grow. More importantly, also examine the nature of consumers' personal involvement with a brand. Why? If it is a relationship that the consumer does not really care about, then there is a tendency to choose whatever is available or convenient and to refuse to pay a premium. The choice then becomes the cheapest option available.

This is fine if your brand is widely available and inexpensive. But it may not be a comfortable scenario for the majority of marketers charged with creating long term value for their brands.

By contrast, if the relationship does matter, consumers are willing to go out of their way to get the brands they want, including being willing to pay more! A much more attractive scenario for a brand guardian to be faced with!

"Every company has metrics that track performance. The key question is whether these metrics really provide visibility to performance as viewed by the customer." – Steve Matthesen, BCG

You can effectively measure the in-market performance of communications with attitudinal measures

Interestingly both Ipsos ASI and Synovate separately put these principles in practice - focus, economy, the individual and by taking into account critical aspects of psychology and buying behaviour. Both companies have determined that measures defined this way can validly measure in-market performance.

There are many influences on the brand relationship and communications is often a relatively weak one. But marketers and agencies alike can rest assured that if they can identify a positive influence from their communications on this measure, then genuine business results will soon follow - as long as market forces (like affordability and distribution) allow these improvements in brand desire to be transformed into actual purchase.

Incorporate consumers' reality in the marketplace

An attitudinally pure measure can tell us what people want to do and helps us understand how communications can influence that. But it cannot account for everything.

There is a reason for that. Wanting something isn't enough - people often can't get what they want due to things like price, availability, etc. and they serve to make it easier or harder for people to act on their desires. Naturally, some brands gain because of the influence of these market forces and some brands lose out.

So research needs to include a measure that can determine how these factors combine with attitudinal equity to determine how consumers actually behave.

We call this `Market Effects', ascertained by using a simple `barrier attribute' question.

And when we combine the market effect with attitudinal measures we can open up a whole new set of conversations.

It allows us to identify whether the company's money would be better spent on improving desire through attempting to influence what people think and feel about the brand (typically via communications or other brand or product experiences) or through intervening in the market by addressing, for example, affordability or availability issues.

To genuinely improve the efficiency of communications so as to build brand resonance, we have to start challenging ourselves to come up with better measures. First and foremost, what counts is the brand. Knowing what counts means we know what to measure. And I am 100% certain that this is an area where Ipsos ASI and Synovate will be better together.