A brand tracker that really moves your brand forward

New insights around brand tracking

Insights from neuroscience are gaining ground in the marketing world. And that's just as well. Not that we as marketers have missed the mark, but the insights can sometimes explain in hindsight why certain things work or don't work or how something works. You can take advantage of that.

Take the insight that we are bad at predicting behavior: stated intentions are hardly predictive of displayed behavior. Yet the classic brand tracker is based entirely on intentions and expressed preferences. The latter also turn out to be particularly volatile and can vary from moment to moment. Using a different color pen already affects how we judge products.

A good illustration of this volatility provides a 2008 study by Berger & Fitzsimons, nicely named Dogs in the street, Puma's on your feet. During one of the experiments, participants were asked to rate a number of products. The only difference between the 2 groups was the color of the pen used to write that judgment. The group with an orange pen judged significantly more positively about orange-colored products. While in the other group green products were judged more positively. There, people wrote with a green pen. So context or environment has a steering effect on your preferences and choices.

So you can legitimately ask how reliable claimed brand preferences are in your brand tracker if you explicitly ask them? Sharp has also already shown that repeating a study 2 weeks later among the same respondents as the first time gives 50% different results.

Brain research has also given us much more insight into how brands are represented in our brain and how brand development occurs unconsciously. For example, the principle under brand development is based on the concept of conditioning and "associative learning. A gradual and slow process where not very shocking changes occur in the short term. So what do you expect as a Brand Manager: high spikes with a new campaign? And if there are none, is your campaign then by definition unsuccessful?

Organizations that can afford a brand tracker on a regular basis are often among the market leaders. These market shares will certainly not grow very much in stable markets. So the market share is fairly stable. Shocking shifts in market share with large peaks and valleys will not produce these brand trackers. So rarely panic or celebration after a new brand campaign. The lack of movement in brand campaigns is also often the reason for asking customers' ratings about the campaigns. If they like it, at least you have a success to report: "Our campaign was very well received."

Yet there is definitely a need for insights around the brand. We especially want to know if our ATL media budget is having the desired effect, how to drive sales and what we need to do in terms of strategy and content to beat our competition. Advertising budgets for brand developments are increasingly scrutinized because of all the data we can collect online and have readily available. Unfortunately, this quite often creates an unjustified addiction to short-term click and conversion monitoring. This says nothing about the long-term effect of your branding (read "The Long and Short of it" by Binet and Fields). There must be a balance between short-term activation and long-term brand building.

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The limitations of traditional brand trackers

When looking at the traditional brand tracker (Top of Mind Awarenes - consideration - preference), there are some limitations to be discovered:

1. Declared intentions and preferences versus actual displayed behaviors and preferences: there is much scientific evidence that this is not very reliable. This limits its applicability and significance.
2. Spontaneous and assisted awareness: there is a big difference between knowing the name of a brand or relating the name of the brand to a moment of purchase are two different things. Everyone in the Netherlands knows De Efteling, but not everyone thinks of the Efteling when we have a day off and want to do something with the family (or at least not yet...) . Relevant awareness is a better indicator of brand strength. The more strong hooks to relevant moments (Category Entry Points ) the stronger the brand and the bigger the market share (see the example of Cola Turka and Coca Cola in his second book, p.) Relevant awareness or Mental Availability is not measured in traditional trackers.
3. Lack of hooks to communication: the traditional brand funnel including image statements may give some insight into the association development of the brand with all its limitations, but why anything changes is not clear. The traditional funnel has no direct hooks to communication ("What should we communicate?") or media engagement ("Where and to whom should we communicate?"). The why of developments is not measured. With that, it is also not immediately clear what needs to be done to change the image or what is causing the success. Ideally, a brand tracker should give actionable insights not only to brand and marketing managers but also to the advertising and media strategist.

So time for a tracker that provides concrete tools to really move the brand forward.

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Rhyme

The brand tracker in its current form is losing value. Marketers indicate that the results do not provide sufficient guidance for adjusting messages, channels or media pressure. Moreover, the results of the brand funnel often do not rhyme with an organization's online performance: conversion rates and search behavior. Brand builders in the organization thus lose support.

That is why 4 years ago we decided to radically change the brand tracker. Consumer behavior is central and forms the starting point of the measurement tool. We turn the funnel upside down, so to speak. By reflecting on a completed buying process, we collect real insights about behavior during the purchase phase. We also no longer measure image statements, but the activation power of the brand during the buying situation. We do this by measuring the strength of associations of the brand with CEPs and DBAs. In addition, we no longer measure explicitly - What do people think of the brand? Which statement is right / wrong - we measure brand valuation implicitly. Explicit measurements may be able to indicate whether an association exists but this gives no insight into the strength and quality of the association. With implicit research, we can do just that based on measured reaction times. Time to change course.

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