In our continuing effort to grow our global reach, we recently merged with Strive Insight, a London-based firm known for their strategic thinking and consulting skills. Our Global Growth blog series features conversations with leaders from Radius and Strive offering their perspective on our Brand Growth Navigator approach. In this post, Michael Jennings, a Senior Vice President at Radius, and Lucy Westlake, a Client Director at Strive, discuss best practices brand teams should consider when working with a research partner on Brand Building.
What are the preliminary steps in identifying opportunities for brands in new markets?
LUCY: We help clients understand the brand landscape, how their brand fits into that landscape, and then identify the best opportunities for their brand. For emerging brands, we will look at positioning and identify the key attributes they should focus on communicating. For more established brands, we can help them understand how their brand positioning resonates across the different markets where they have a presence.
MICHAEL: Clients come to us to develop a better understanding of their positioning in markets, and to learn more about how they can differentiate their brand. We also work with large companies that have multiple brands and categories to help them differentiate within their own business as well as within markets. This can be important when a brand acquires a company that they used to compete with. We help them develop a strategy for integrating the new brand successfully.
How do you gauge opportunities for a brand in a new market?
LUCY: We provide a general foundational market understanding which serves as a base and launching pad for identifying opportunities. For example, a beverages company we work with has a different competitive context, as well as varying levels of establishment, in each of their markets, so we help them develop a global to-do list on overall brand health while keeping in mind their position across various markets.
What types of brand tracking strategies work well for global brands?
LUCY: Brand tracking is an essential element of brand health, but many teams we work with are trying to do more with less spend. For example, a brand team we work with wanted to consolidate a high budget brand tracker they had with another research agency. We helped them consolidate the program into 5 KPIs that they track using a short ten-minute survey, conducted only in key markets. This was a very efficient way for the team to track only what they need to know. Another client asked us to take the data they collect with another research agency and re-analyze it to help them get more value from their tracking data.
MICHAEL: We have a client in the vacation rental space. We maintain customer satisfaction tracking (CSAT) across the 13 countries where they have a presence, but they also wanted to know more about their competition. They didn’t have the budget to do a full study, but were able to add a few key questions about their competition to our CSAT tracker, which helped the brand team boost market competitor knowledge.
What are best practices for conducting research in regional markets?
MICHAEL: We have offices and partners around the world. If, for example, we’re working in the UK or Dubai, we have teams there. It’s critical to talk with people who are in the country to onboard the best moderators and facilities, and utilize approaches that together will match the cultural expectations and norms of the market.
LUCY: It’s important to understand the nuances of each market. If stakeholders feel you haven’t taken into consideration important aspects of their particular market, they might reject your findings. We work first with the client to understand the market and the stakeholder structure and expectations in each market. Then we create a research plan and check back with our local agency partners, and the client to get feedback and buy-in for the proposed research approach.
It’s important to understand the nuances of each market. If stakeholders feel you haven’t taken into consideration important aspects of their particular market, they might reject your findings.” – Lucy Westlake
How do research insights impact activation market-by-market?
MICHAEL: For us, and particularly with global or multi-regional studies, the activation stage is more than helping clients understand the findings. We recently conducted a study that included Germany, Japan, the U.S., and the UK. Each market had its own director with their own views about how the brand should be positioned in their market. We worked with these teams to help them align on a global positioning with nuances within each market. This was challenging, but our research helped to make the case for the value in the overall plan.
We guide the brand team in their activation plans to help them find the data points they need to build action plans. This stage of our work is important, and we want to be sure they understand the findings and insights so they can own the work and carry it through to success in each market.
LUCY: We prioritize what the business needs to know first, give them answers to those key questions and then drill down. We focus first on what the c-suite or board members need to know and present the findings in a format that is quickly and easily digestible to them. We approach our analysis answer-first by asking, “What is the key question the team needs to answer?” and those answers appear at the front of the report so stakeholders don’t have to wade through the mud to get to the insights.
MICHAEL: The key strength that the Strive and Radius teams have is close client relationships. Our servicing is top-notch, our teams are focused and responsive. Our work is more than data. We work with sensitive issues, and our role is to help teams understand the options and work together to build successful action plans.
Our work is more than data. We work with sensitive issues, and our role is to help teams understand the options and work together to build successful action plans.” – Michael Jennings
Are you planning to expand your brand’s global reach?
