Have you ever commissioned a piece of brand research, and the
big day of presentation of findings arrives. Oohs and aahs from the
audience - it's big, it's comprehensive. Great sample size.
Impressive methodology. It confirms what we suspected about the
market.
Yet in the back of your mind, there's a niggling question - is
it actually useful? Did we make any decisions that helped us
improve the value of our brands or the relevance of our offer? At
GSG, our view is that much brand research is of low practical
business value and needs to be rethought.
There are a range of classic problems and pitfalls in the field of
brand measurement that we have encountered over the years:
- Metrics are reported out of context - customers do
not experience brands in isolation - they are experienced in the
context of a changing market, and against alternatives. Metrics
need to reflect this.
- Metrics are not connected to drivers of brand
equity - you need to understand the underlying drivers of
value to the business - what behaviours are important, and what
opinions customers have that affect their behaviours. Metrics need
to cover enablers of success, not just outcomes such as sales
information.
- Metrics are not connected to business
decision-making - to be useful, the measures need to trigger
decisions that change the way the brand is managed. Managers should
be held accountable for delivering on all the main drivers of
performance (not just sales or financial KPIs).
- Measurement systems are too complicated - to be
useful for quick decision-making, brand measures need to be easy to
use and not overly time-consuming to collect. This makes measures
timely and usable.
Recent GSG work involved the development of a comprehensive
'Brand Report Card' - a framework to improve the way brands are
measured, and to provide relevant and timely information for the
management of brands.
Our recommendation to clients is to start with a robust conceptual
framework of the drivers of brand value, then adapt that to the
specific requirements and drivers of their organisation and
industry. This can then be built into an actionable business
process and a simple and regular Brand Report Card (sometimes
called a 'Brand Dashboard').
There is a way to get to A+.
If you are interested in new approaches to brand effectiveness,
please call Dale
Renner on (03) 9670 4700.