We challenged our team to shake up the traditional brand health approach, and they delivered a framework that brand teams can use to drive differentiation and deepen customer relationships.
This project was initiated in response to feedback from brand managers across various categories who expressed concerns about the growing difficulty of differentiating their offerings in competitive markets. Traditional funnel marketing approaches, once effective, were no longer providing the deep insights needed to build a loyal customer base. Teams were increasingly worried about their ability to support long-term growth goals. As one client put it, “We’re swimming in a sea of sameness.”
To address these concerns, we launched a comprehensive research study to examine emerging trends, interview clients and experts, and develop new advanced analytics methods to help brand teams build long-term growth strategies through closer connections with their customers.
The result is our Brand Health Insights Framework, which provides teams with a holistic view of the market landscape and competitive intelligence on best practices that similar brands are adopting. This framework offers a clear view of gaps, opportunities, and deeper insights into why strong customer relationships are critical drivers of success for market-leading brands. It provides detailed guidance to help brand managers identify specific steps to forge a clear path to growth.
Our Brand Health Insights Framework moves you through four growth stages.
Brands can capture attention with ads, but keeping customers engaged long-term requires a deep understanding of what they want, expect, and even hope for from your brand. Our framework provides the insights teams need to guide growth through four stages, along with strategies to create a holistic, customer-centric approach to brand health.
Stage 1: Salience
How well can people recognize your brand at first mention or when prompted? The initial review in the Brand Health Insights Framework assesses brand salience to understand how familiar likely customers are with your brand and how their past usage influences their current feelings. We calculate factors such as awareness and familiarity to determine how well your brand distinguishes itself in your marketplace.
Stage 2: Perceptions/Emotions
We identify whether your targets can provide fast, automatic, or even intuitive reactions to your brand. These System 1 emotions, as well as subconscious and emotional responses, indicate an increased level of consideration and position your brand as a preferred choice.
Stage 3: Preference
Preference involves careful thought and consideration as targets move from heightened awareness to valuing your brand as a favorite. This momentum involves System 2 measures, assessing perceptions of functional attributes such as reliability, performance, or superior customer support. This stage helps define a more solid understanding of the attributes that matter most to consumers.
Stage 4: Resonance
At this stage, your brand personality is clearly understood, capturing the imagination of consumers who can “see themselves” using the brand. Resonance represents a System 3 state where customers are deeply attached to the brand and are more likely to recommend it to others. They can articulate how your brand makes them feel and how it enhances their lives.
The Brand Health Insights Framework in action.
Our framework helps brand teams see their potential to grow, regardless of their current market position. For industries like financial services or healthcare, where services and offerings can appear indistinguishable to consumers, our Brand Health Insights Framework combines advanced analytics with deep qualitative methodologies to help brand managers forge a stronger brand identity.
Data visualization creates a “you are here” view of the market for comparison.
We create a Brand Health Composite score for your brand that determines the key drivers of brand health using proprietary advanced analytics. Important elements of our holistic analysis include:
- KPI and diagnostic charts that show your score as well as the scores of similar brands, focusing on your competitors.
- Custom summaries and brand health assessments that highlight best practice attributes to help brands excel when leveraged properly.
These comprehensive insights show brand teams what they’re doing well and where they could improve. Teams have an opportunity to explore their competitors’ relative strengths and weaknesses to identify a path to a stronger market position. We provide specific recommendations and help teams build strategic action plans to drive differentiation and move customers toward their brand by aligning their offerings with customer needs. Measurable KPIs help teams assess their approach over time, so they can see incremental success and plot revenue potential and growth objectives based on the success of their strategies.
To test the efficacy of our Brand Health Insights Framework, we conducted an in-house research study examining nine brands in the financial services space. Read the case study for an in-depth view of the framework.
Our framework builds aspirational, achievable goals for your team.
When your team feels “lost in a sea of sameness,” they’ll struggle to build meaningful campaigns that make your brand stand out. Our Brand Health Insights Framework provides a critical assessment of where your brand is positioned in the market and an aspirational view of where your brand can go, outlining specific steps your team can take to build successful programs.
Are you struggling with brand differentiation? Contact us to discuss how our model can help you build visibility.
