BRAND TRACKING 3.0

Brand tracking needs to evolve from a continuous data accumulation tool….

….to an “actionable brand management system” with defined parameters and performance benchmarks

The creators of brand tracking also believe that it is time for the tool to change and evolve:

“Tracking needs to evolve from all encompassing single studies to measuring a brand’s performance using a range of best-of-breed tools to address multiple, and more complex, issues and objectives” – Gordon Pincott, Chairman, Global Solutions

“Today, tracking is facing new challenges. The sheer complexity of today’s competitive environment challenges its ability to cover the plethora of brand extensions, media choices, retail channels and target groups.”– Nigel Hollis, Chief Global Analyst

Case 1:In 2003, P&G rolled out a new proprietary brand tracking system based on Kevin Keller’s consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) conceptual framework.

Kevin Lane Keller’s CBBE Model

Case 2:LG Electronics has evolved its traditional brand tracking program into “Experience Tracking” since 2010.

Traditional trackers at a glance…..

Backward looking Long questionnaires Inflexible

InconsistentLack of causality

Low value Too much data Statistics heavy

…..and what they should be.

• “We’re working with media agencies exploring influences across a variety of touchpoints and what we are finding suggests there’s more going on here than we can capture in traditional GRP ad spend measurement. It’s not the TV commercial that is dead but the traditional way of reporting recall and measuring influence that needs some reviving.”

• “Clients are changing their way of thinking as well, some faster than others. Many are locked into an old school kind of view about of what tracking used to be and what it always was. Others know more about the value that newer approaches can actually bring them. These are the most open minded people who are experimenting and innovating together with us. And they are seeing the best results in the end.”

• “A key for many of our clients is not delaying the delivery of insights until the scheduled quarterly deck, but keeping the insight flow continuous, timely and proactive. Making the insights flow in real time, or ideally, faster than that.”

• “Should we even still be calling it tracking? It is about continuous understanding of what is current and relevant to the category and to the client at that time. What we do needs to be adaptive, flexible, and nimble, because everything moves very quickly. You can source information from so many places. It’s at our fingertips. We need to be really quick and responsive.”

Johnson & Johnson moved away from a decentralized brand tracking system for its power brands to a cross-company holistic system in 2013.

Brenda Armstead, VP, Global Strategic Insights

“We have moved to one methodology to track some of our mega brands.”

“We intend to become more of a global organization with standards and consistency in the way we track our brand equity across our entire consumer group portfolio.”

“We have embraced the Millward Brown composite metric that captures levels of engagement and commitment that brands inspire. Its composite brand score is a tool that helps guide the every-day brand-equity evaluation.”

“For us, it's about doing activation sessions with our local markets – and with our cross-functional teams – to make sure that we're actually putting plans against addressing any outages in our equity. So, if we're off, we ought to be doing something about that to close the gap.”

“By measuring meaningfulness, difference, and saliency – the three components of the Millward Brown metric, the company would be able to really pull the brand apart and discover what is driving the brand in different markets.”

Some fresh perspectives…..

Prof. Byron SharpInterviewer: But you don’t like these brand tracking services?

Prof. Sharp: There is an industry that provides special scores on brands, based on surveying customers. These services mostly claim to be measures of things like brand loyalty or brand equity. They usually have exotic names like commitment model, brand esteem, brand voltage, brand asset evaluator….Essentially they claim to be able to predict whether the brand is about to gain or lose market share.

I think any claims made for these proprietary products should be subject to independent examination. It’s the job of academics to do this testing. Some of the claims are so extraordinary, and so important that they deserve to be checked out. If they turn out to be true that would be fabulous.

Interviewer: And do these proprietary brand health surveys, metrics work?

Prof. Sharp: Well that’s just the thing. No one knows.

Lowe’s experiment with Google Consumer Surveys to transform brand tracking

http://www.slideshare.net/BAQMaR/kyle-nel-innovationlabsrethinking-the-tracker-112313

“In a ‘Naturalist’s Voyage Around The World’, Charles Darwin comments on a ‘most singular group of finches, related to each other in the structure of their beaks, short tails, form of body and plumage: there are thirteen species, which Mr. Gould has divided into four sub-groups.’ Just as with Darwin’s Galapagos finches, we believe that tracking studies will continue to evolve, taking on different but related forms to meet their specific objectives.”- Nigel Hollis, Global Strategic Planning Director

1 Get focused: Five broad areas where tracking can add insight: Brand health, Customer experience, Volumetrics, Quality of communication and Media efficiency

2 Get real: Those involved in designing the study must be brutally realistic about its scope – what can it reasonably measure?

3 Get predictive: Tracking data can be used to understand the probabilities that things will or will not happen.

4Get integrated: Tracking really adds value when you use it to help create a holistic view of the environment in which a brand competes. This can range from meta-analysis to fusing tracking data with behavioural or other data sources.

5 Get involved: Real value of tracking comes when there are specific issues to be addressed. There is a definite need to know planned marketing actions.

http://www.wpp.com/wpp/marketing/marketresearch/thefutureoftrackingstudies/

Nielsen and Kraft Pilot New Brand Tracking Tool - Did that ad actually convince someone to buy? – July 6, 2014

Nielsen – Catalina developed ROI-centric and multi-touch attribution approach (MTA)

Runs data provided by Kraft against purchaser info culled from Acxiom, Experian and Nielsen – Catalina

Application: If 10 people in the same ZIP code decide to ditch Annie’s Shells & Cheese after watching a funny ad, Kraft will know what the ad was and where the viewers saw it. The platform is agnostic – you could plug in, say, Frito Lay data just as easily

Millions of loyalty card data-sets, all anonymous and allowing one-to-one matching

Kraft: “MTA for us is really just understanding consumers, but understanding them in way that we can bring timely messaging to them that they want to hear."

…some more fresh perspectives

From virtual to augmented reality:Augmented reality and the future of research

Richard Russo, VP, Consumer, Shopper & Retail Insights

Augmented Reality is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.

Ability to expose shoppers and respondents to “what-if” scenarios while they’re in-situation, effectively merging real-life, augmented and virtual environments together to achieve specific research objectives.

Integration of augmented reality research with GPS-enabled location-based services will also gain prominence as a research tool in the near future, allowing both manufacturers and retailers alike to test new products, category arrangements and in-store marketing materials, and extending into adjacent industries.

This holds promise in re-inventing brand health tracking initiatives, replacing brand recall with actual tracking of exposure (including location) and truly understanding both the incremental and cumulative value of brand interactions on favorability, health and purchase.

By integrating brand tracking and consumer survey data with predictive modeling, MMA is helping some of the largest global brands balance investments to drive both short-term sales and long-term brand equity, while transforming the marketing planning process

How does each marketing vehicle and campaign impact Brand KPIs and Sales? How to use predictive analytics to balance short-term and long-term investments in

marketing? What is the impact of all business drivers (marketing, economic, competition,

operations) on brand KPIs and sales? How does a change in brand KPIs lead to changes in other brand KPIs and consumer

behavior? Which metrics are the emerging leading indicators for the business? What is the financial value (ROI) of a change in Brand KPIs? What is the right mix of marketing investments to drive brand objectives? What will be the future impact of a change in the marketing and messaging strategy?

On Device Research powers Millward Brown's move to mobile in AMAP regionin Newson Tuesday August 27, 2013 @ 4:12

On Device Research becomes a preferred provider for data collection via the mobile internet in the AMAP region

Nestle first client to migrate brand and comms tracker onto mobile in Malaysia

Khoo Kar Khoon, Communications Director for Nestle Products Malaysia, said “We were really pleased with the results of the pilot study.  The benefits in speed and data quality were instrumental in our decision to move forward, and we expect even greater efficiencies over time.  We’re keen to explore mobile in more of our research where relevant”.

Evolving role of Brand Health Measurement Vendors

1 Follow the lead of “innovative marketers” by implementing new research tools and technologies.

2 Link customers’ brand perceptions to specific metrics like market share, and create predictive models that can forecast a brand’s performance

3 Offering deep industry experience combined with a global reach

4 Moving away from “brand tracking” tactics and closer to “brand deep dive” research and social listening

Beyond Brand Tracking: Measuring the Impact of Campaigns in a Multi-Dimensional World

System 1 Brand Tracking measures the effectiveness and contribution of each element of a campaign and their impact on brand equity through an innovative approach inspired by the latest advances in behavioural science. Furthermore, it delivers where traditional brand tracking cannot - by revealing the emotionally charged relationship between a consumer and a brand, and delivering key takeaways to foster the emotional bond.

http://vimeo.com/101436361

“Mental availability is the propensity of the brand to be noticed or come to mind in buying situations.

So most brand perception tracking surveys can be adapted to also measure Mental Availability. The biggest fault we find with existing brand tracking surveys is that they have an emphasis on evaluation, so contain many attributes that don't measure memory but rather measure attitude (which means they measure past usage). It also means they have a great deal of redundancy. All of this can be fixed.

In addition to the group of attributes that are used to measure mental availability, we encourage adding some descriptive assets to track the brand's distinctive assets (e.g. tone, colours, logos, slogans, characters). There is value in measuring these perceptions because they allow communication to be branded (and therefore build salience) and these cues are used by consumers in noticing brands.”

- Byron Sharp, Director, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute of Marketing Science (University of South Australia)

“When we drew up our plans and budgets, the key metric was consumer impressions: how many people would see, hear or read our ad?But impressions only tell the advertiser the raw size of the audience. By definition impressions are passive. Awareness is fine, but advocacy will take your business to the next level.We are increasingly tracking “consumer expressions”. To us, an expression is any level of engagement with our brand content by a consumer or constituent.”- Joe Tripodi, EVP & Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer

Do Online Behavior Tracking or Attitude Survey Metrics Drive Brand Sales? An Integrative Model of Attitudes and Actions on the Consumer Boulevard

http://www.msi.org/reports/do-online-behavior-tracking-or-attitude-survey-metrics-drive-brand-sales-an/

Sandeep DasBrand strategy consultant

e: sandeep.das@hotmail.comm: +44 750 3935 142LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/sandeepdas1

© All rights reserved – Sandeep Das, Brand Strategy Consultant

Please attribute when sharing