The Usefulness of Brand equity research

Advancements in the instantaneous collection of various data and metrics over the past decade, stemming from the rise of consumers’ use of online channels-from browsing to gathering information to shopping to communicating-- have really helped brands understand how their customers behave online. This has not only helped construct a more accurate and updated map of the consumer journey, but also , better ad targeting, clearer data on shopping and purchasing behaviors, and predictive models.

There are other actions consumers take while offline that are just as important for brands to understand, that are not fully  captured by digital data.  For example:

·  Are consumers even aware of your brand?

·  How do they perceive your brand? How do they perceive competitor brands?

·  Would they recommend your brand?

·  Have they seen and can they recall any of your offline communications?

That is why tools like Brand Equity studies are still very useful.  A Brand Equity study can supplement the data you have from all your digital sources so you can have a more holistic picture of your brand’s health.  You should understand not just what consumers do, but also how they feel and what they think.

Although many of our clients want to do a Brand Equity study, they can be worried about costs. Brand Equity studies do not have to be expensive to be useful.  A well designed Brand Equity, that focuses on assessing brand health based on certain key metrics and perceptions, repeated at a frequency that makes sense for your brand and category, can be just as useful, and cost a fraction of what a full blown, multi-module, quarterly Brand Equity study can cost.

Below are 2 case studies, highlighting how Lab42 clients utilized Brand Equity to assess the current health of their brands.

Case Study 1.
Client is a smaller brand and wanted to understand not just the health of the brand, but also whether the brand was strong enough on certain perceptions that the client could feel comfortable using some of them in their marketing messages

Case Study 2.
Client is a mid-size brand, trying to understand whether its marketing activities helped strengthen the brand's equity.

These are just two examples of how our clients have used brand equity studies to gather insights that helped them in their marketing efforts, and there are countless other ways to utilize the data captured from these studies.