What is brand equity measurement and how can it be a driving force in building your brand? Let me begin by saying that marketing professionals still have different definitions of brand equity and therefore brand equity measurement.
If one defines brand equity as the value that a brand adds to the branded product, service or organization itself, then we have a broad understanding of brand equity. Common brand equity measures include brand awareness and a brand’s perceived relevant differentiation. Most models include these two metrics. Other common metrics include a brand’s market share, the price premium that the brand can command over unbranded products in the same category and customer loyalty to the brand.
Models can be super-simplistic, such as the popular Net Promoter Score, which only measures one thing – attitudinal loyalty to the brand – with one question, the likelihood of recommending the brand to a friend or colleague. Or they can be comprehensive, such as our BrandInsistence brand equity measurement system, which measures over 90 brand equity components (including two different attitudinal brand loyalty questions). Most brand equity measurement systems are somewhere in between these two extremes.
Creating Brand Insistence
The Blake Project’s BrandInsistence system has as its underpinning the five drivers of customer brand insistence – awareness, relevant differentiation, value, accessibility and emotional connection. But it also measures the importance of and brand delivery against up to 24 brand or category benefits or shared values. The benefits can be functional, experiential, emotional or self-expressive. It also measures top-of-mind brand associations (the brand is owned in the mind of the customer) and top-of-mind brand differentiators. And brand loyalty and brand vitality and up to 30 different brand personality attributes. We have four standard emotional connection measures, which move from mild emotional connection to deep emotional connection. But we can go much deeper with an ancillary product that can map your brand against hundreds of personality attributes and emotions.
Brand equity systems should be used to achieve the following on behalf of your brand:
Create a baseline brand equity measurement for your brand so that you can measure the impact of your brand management activities on the brand over time
Identify the brand’s strengths, weaknesses, vulnerabilities and threats, including brand positioning vulnerabilities and threats
Identify competitive brands’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
Identify advantageous brand (re)positioning opportunities (for your brand and competitive brands)
Measure the impact of specific brand enhancing programs or campaigns
Measure progress made by the brand over time
Validate the value of your brand to the leadership team of your organization
Here are some examples of how our clients from Global, National and emerging brands have used our BrandInsistence brand equity measurement system to strengthen their brands:
One client discovered that they had a value and price perception problem. They took corrective action and then remeasured the brand equity, which increased substantially after the corrective action.
Another client discovered that they were doing everything very well and that the people familiar with their brand loved the brand and were very loyal but that their major problem was extremely low brand awareness based on very low market penetration. After taking corrective action, sales of their brand skyrocketed.
Another brand discovered that a recent extension of their brand into a new market to increase sales turned their traditional customers off and that their loyalty was decreasing substantially. Based on this, we recommended a new business model to the client.
Another client whose brand was in rapid decline discovered new product and service areas through which their brand could become relevant and compelling to its target audience again. When it implemented these changes, it saved the brand and its organization. Based on this project’s outcome, key members of the organization’s leadership team were promoted.
Another brand discovered that its brand perceptions were incongruent with the perceptions of its primary distribution channels. By changing distribution channels, its sales began to soar.
Another brand discovered that the consumer was completely confused about the brand and the benefits that it delivers because of some very confusing brand cues from product packaging. Based on this insight, it is revising its brand’s promise, redesigning the brand’s product packaging and identifying the customer segments that are most likely to highly value this repositioned brand.
One client discovered a competitor’s brand positioning vulnerability and was able to successfully reposition the competitor in a negative light, creating a share shift to their brand.
If you are considering different brand equity measurement systems, consider how sophisticated each one is and to what degree and in what ways it can help you increase brand loyalty, decrease brand price sensitivity and increase brand sales, market share and profitability. I hope this provides you with a better understanding of what brand equity measurement is and how it can be used to strengthen your brand.
Written by Brad VanAuken The Blake Project