Estimation of a brand’s value and its contribution to business has always been considered the main challenge in measuring intangible assets. But what are those brands that make the highest contribution to business value? What brands achieve greater financial result? The stronger the brand, the higher the company’s stock price.
This document was prepared by Corporate Excellence – Centre for Reputation Leadership and among other references contains statements made by Adolfo Fernández, Director for Customer Services at Millward Brown, Madrid; Javier Mancebo, Intelligence Director at Havas Sport & Entertainment; and José Carlos Villalvilla, General Director for Eco-Efficiency and Power Services at Iberdrola during a discussion titled New Measurement Frontiers: from Reputation to Customer Value organized by Anuncios magazine jointly with Conento and Millward Brown in Madrid, on October 18, 2012.
1. Brand equity is intangible value that determines
to what extent associations evoked by a brand are
able to predispose stakeholders to prefer this brand
to others or pay a premium price for the brand now
or in the future, says Adolfo Fernández, Director
for Customer Service at Millward Brown, Madrid.
This definition of brand equity enables us to carry
out accurate evaluation of brand value and its
economic role.
In fact, the fastest growing brands are those that have
a close and positive relationship with consumers and
thus achieve superior financial results. According to
the recent study by the expert and former Global
Marketing Director of Procter&Gamble Jim
Stengel, those brands that embrace a social ideal
and use it in their activities, in the last 10 years
achieved 400% more favourable results than their
competitors from Standard&Poor’s 500.
Connection is Key
New research methods allow scientists to make
progress in measuring emotional connection
between brands, consumers and other stakeholders
as well as its correlation with the economic value
of these brands. Non-intrusive qualitative methods
of observing behaviour in real environment as well
as online environment (such as Facial Coding or
Eye Tracking, interpretation of facial expressions or
eye movements on the screen) enable scientists to
define emotions experienced by a consumer at the
moment of contact with the brand, such as seeing
the product in the shop window or in commercials
on the television.
Estimation of a brand’s value and its contribution to business has always been
considered the main challenge in measuring intangible assets. But what are
those brands that make the highest contribution to business value? What brands
achieve greater financial result? The stronger the brand, the higher the company’s
stock price.
I42/2014
Strong Brands, Profitable
Brands: How Greater
Alignment with Ideals Leads to
Best Results
Metrics
Insights&Trends
This document was prepared by Corporate Excellence – Centre for Reputation Leadership and among other references contains statements
made by Adolfo Fernández, Director for Customer Services at Millward Brown, Madrid; Javier Mancebo, Intelligence Director at
Havas Sport & Entertainment; and José Carlos Villalvilla, General Director for Eco-Efficiency and Power Services at Iberdrola during
a discussion titled New Measurement Frontiers: from Reputation to Customer Value organized by Anuncios magazine jointly with
Conento and Millward Brown in Madrid, on October 18, 2012.
2. Insights&Trends 2
Strong Brands,
Profitable Brands:
How Greater
Alignment with
Ideals Leads to
Best Results
“Significant,
catchy and
unusual
associations
lead to
stronger
connection
between a
brand and
different
stakeholders”
Progress made in market research in the last four
decades made it possible to improve efficiency
of brand measurements. For example, the
segmentation technique evolved from analyzing
purely demographic characteristics of consumers to
evaluation of elements related to the brand:
• 1980s: social and demographic segmentation
(consumer’s age, sex, nationality, job, income,
marital status, number of children and other
dependents). This segmentation is useful for
developing brands portfolio but insufficient for
explaining preference of this or that brand.
• 1990s: psychographic segmentation (consumer’s
desires, needs, purchasing behaviour,
habits, life style, beliefs), in addition to the
social and demographic information. This
segmentation is useful for differentiating
the brands portfolio but insufficient for
exploring new growth opportunities.
• 2000s: brand equity (what’s useful and necessary
for the consumer) in addition to the previous
two types of segmentation and the information
that they provide. This segmentation is
useful for classifying brands by associations
and focusing on investments in key brands
but insufficient for identifying true value and
economic potential for market segments.
• 2010s: new segmentation (unsatisfied
needs, desires, potential use, holistic vision,
relation to sales, financing volume and
impact of different groups of consumers).
This segmentation is useful for predicting
growth of brands, detecting changes
in market conditions and consumer
reactions to changing conditions as
well as making tactical and strategic
decisions based on economic data.
A brand’s connection to its stakeholders should be
based on a grand ideal, an idea about the world,
life and society shared with the stakeholders – an
idea that will guide different associations evoked by
a brand (memories, impressions and feelings) and
serve as the basis for its competitive advantage and
differentiation on the market.
Significant, catchy and unusual associations lead to
stronger connection between a brand and different
stakeholders and thus greater possibility that the
brand will be picked by the consumers to be used,
by employees to work for, by shareholders to invest,
by suppliers to become partners, etc. However,
above all, strong connection ensures stakeholders’
predisposition to trust the brand.
Core Ideal Metric and Brand-Z
Brand equity measurement tools have undergone
significant changes over the last few years as a result
of the processes described above. In the context of the
economic crisis and dynamic social changes caused by
technologies, brands do not need description of the
current situation. What they do need is evaluation
and projections of the future in order to make the right
choices in the continuously turbulent environment.
That’s why Millward Brown developed two
methods for performing brand measurements. Core
Ideal Metric measures the degree of association
between a brand and a specific ideal consisting of
five large groups of aspirations and corresponding
fundamental human values:
• Joy: creating numerous happy experiences.
• Connection: making sense of human relations.
• Exploration: opening new horizons
and setting new limits.
• Pride: generating trust, strength,
vitality and security.
• Impact: changing the society and
the present status quo.
Graph 1: An overall picture of how brands generate a financial return
Source: MillwardBrown, 2012.
Meaningful
Salient
Different
Brand
Predisposition
In-market Activators
s
$
£
¥Brand
Associations
Power
Premium
Potential
Volume share
Price Index
Value share growth
3. Insights&Trends 3
Strong Brands,
Profitable Brands:
How Greater
Alignment with
Ideals Leads to
Best Results
“The key
to brand
management
and
measurement is
to understand
what brands
are supported
by consumers
rather than
what brands
are purchased”
Accordingly, Millward Brown uses three indicators
to estimate the value of a brand by using different
combinations of three elements (meaningful,
different and salient):
• Power. Prediction of the market share
based solely on perceptions: are consumers
predisposed to prefer this brand to others?
• Premium. Prediction of the price
based solely on perceptions: are
consumers predisposed to pay more
for this brand than for others?
• Potential. Forecast of market share’s
growth based solely on perceptions: are
consumers predisposed to continue using
the brand and not switch to other brands?
More than Advertising ROI
The world of brand sponsorship is somewhat away
from those fields where measurement tools are
developing at a gigantic pace. Javier Mancebo,
Director for Intelligence at Havas Sport &
Entertainment, believes that other tools should
be used in the field in addition to the famous ROI
(return on investment) widely used in advertising.
When applied to sponsorship, ROI means the
advertising value of the brand’s presence in the
media when it appears together with the event or
object that it sponsors.
This association is then adjusted to market
comparables and its unique features and evaluated
in terms of its brand strength and market share.
Another method is called Brand-Z. It uses several
keyelementsinordertoevaluateandcalculatebrand
value. More specifically, it uses six dimensions:
• Bonding.
• Advantage.
• Relevance.
• Presence.
• Perceived price.
• Performance.
According to Stengel, the brand ideal does not only
propel created emotional connection or achieved
differentiation, but also enables the brand to
become its own key engine of success, strength and
support for other brand equity dimensions, such as
price, presence, relevance or performance.
Three key conditions help this brand ideal to
strengthen value dimensions:
• Passion: encourage people’s self-
expression and release their potential.
• Fun: encourage to see the positive
side of life and inspire happiness.
• Emotion: embrace integrity
and free your feelings.
Graph 2: Bike Company X Web Analytics Framework
Source: Kaushik, 2012.
Business Objective Goal KPI KPI Target
Sell Bike Parts
More Sales Monthly Revenue $15,000 / mo
Increase unique visits
Monthly Unique
Visitors
13,000
Make a Profit Profit Margin/Sale 40%
Effective Marketing
CRM – build a
customer DB
# of new registrations
/ mo
300 / mo
Build Goodwill
Draw Qualified
Customers
Conversion Rate 3%
Serve as resource to
riding community
# of pageviews of
resource pages
1500 / mo
Segmented KPI: (example) # of new registrations / mo
Total Reg Goal = 300 Results = 332 (110% of Goal) Percent
Paid Search 223 67%
Organic Search 67 20%
Referrals 17 5%
Direct 25 8%
1 2 3 4
5
4. Insights&Trends 4
Strong Brands,
Profitable Brands:
How Greater
Alignment with
Ideals Leads to
Best Results
Mancebo notes that all these models are based on
the same variables such the play time, presence of
the brand (recognition, advertising space, visibility
and ratio) and value in terms of advertising
cost. These criteria are used for negotiating the
conditions of sponsorship, but not really for
evaluating its efficiency.
That’s why it is important to make another step
further and evaluate the efficiency of sponsorship
and its contribution to the brand, by analyzing
all points of contact between the consumer and
the sponsorship (the mass media, participation in
events and social networks) that in turn generate
knowledge in the form of three variables:
• Recognition of the brand.
• Association with specific regions.
• Knowledge of products/services.
This knowledge should then be evaluated in terms
of the changes in perceptions that it brought about
(attributes, associations, values), attitudes that
it generated and behaviours that it encouraged
(purchasing intention, recommendation, etc.).
Conclusion: Support is More
Important Than Sales
The key to brand management and measurement is to
understand what brands are supported by consumers,
what brands are trusted and viewed as an expression
of life ideals. Only these brands are able to achieve
superior results in terms of trust, connection with the
stakeholders and economic and financial results.
That’s why brand measurement tools should aim to
analyse not only purchasing behaviours, but also the
behaviours of support, as well as the propensity to
recommend and defend brands, as already manifested
in social networks and the digital environment.
Finally, according to José Carlos Villalvilla, General
Director for Eco-Efficiency and Power Services of
Iberdrola, integration and involvement of all business
unitsatthemomentofmeasuringintangibles,especially
in the case of reputation, is another key to success in
the new business model, which implies continuous and
overall measurement of achieved value.