Measuring brand progress allows a marketer to gauge how well the brand strategy is working, the impact marketing activity is having, and to keep an eye on the competition.
The four measures below are among the most important for gauging brand success.
These dimensions tend to develop at different rates, which means that the most relevant measures of brand progress depend on the brand’s life stage.
1. During the launch phase, awareness of the brand’s name is a key metric. Familiarity with the brand name alone makes people more comfortable with the idea of buying it (due to the mere exposure effect).
2. During the expansion phase, the brand needs to establish how it differs from alternatives, so progress should be assessed via levels of awareness of what the brand stands for. This could be measured via a survey in an unprompted way (e.g., “What brands can you think of that fill you up when you’re hungry?”) or by using a prompted list of brands (e.g., “Which of these brands fill you up when you’re hungry?”). What’s important is how the brand’s share of mentions increases over time until it ‘owns’ the dimension.
3. During the defensive phase, most of the target audience is aware of the brand and what it stands for, so the priority is to maintain consideration by building a strong emotional connection.
In most categories, people’s attitudes to brands change slowly. It can take years for emerging brands to challenge established players, so brand progress can be evaluated annually. For new brands or rapidly evolving categories, however, the brand’s standing should be reviewed every six months or quarterly and systems should be put in place to detect changes in brand performance vs competitors on a monthly or weekly basis. In categories where consumers tend to research their purchase, the number of search queries featuring the brand name is an ideal way to measure how the brand stacks up to competitors. Google Trends provides this data free of charge.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Dan White, author of The Soft Skills Book, The Smart Marketing Book and The Smart Branding Book
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Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education
