Category: Aspectus

By Ellie Jackson, Chief Client Strategy Officer

One of the fascinating things about being in marketing in the last decade or so has been the evolution of digital marketing and how that’s affected measurement and reporting. For the first time, we have been able to link campaigns, content and coverage to shifts in the quantity and quality of web traffic. That data not only shows us what has and what hasn’t worked but is also a directional steer for future campaigns.

The seductive nature of short-term metrics

Take media relations, which has traditionally been considered hard to measure. Efforts like AMEC’s Barcelona Principles have made good headway, but when you get into the details, it’s still an area of much debate. Against that backdrop, the transparency of digital marketing reporting has been seductive. There’s been a drive to measure more and more marketing activity in this way – assessing short-term ROI based on clicks and conversions.  A recent study from the LinkedIn B2B Institute found that of 4,000 B2B marketers, just four per cent were measuring the effect of campaigns beyond six months. 

It’s tempting. And there’s no denying that it’s useful to see when a piece of coverage has prompted a rise in traffic or branded search, and how that traffic has performed. We can see that the coverage is being seen by the right people and prompting immediate engagement. 

But this is where we need to be careful not to overreach. What we’re doing here is using short-term, lead generation metrics to assess a tactic from the long-term brand-building stable. This is valuable information, but it’s only part of the picture. It’s like judging a marathon by how fast the runners cover the first 100 meters. 

The Long and the Short of it

If you’re familiar with Binet and Field’s work The Long and the Short of it, skip on down a couple of paragraphs. If not, let me explain what I mean. It’s useful to think of marketing as having two broad elements: long-term brand-building, and short-term ‘performance marketing’ or sales activation. Success comes from the right combination of the two, which both feed and feed off each other. 

The ‘long’ is about brand-building: strengthening your brand awareness and perceptions over time to increase brand salience – the likelihood of your brand being top of mind at the point of purchase. When it comes to big B2B purchases – an area in which we specialize, the chances are that only around five to ten per cent of your audience is actively looking to buy at any given time. So, a big part of the game is ensuring that your brand is first to mind when your prospect moves into the buying cycle. Because even for high-mental-involvement purchases, supported by buying committees and procurement teams, lots of research indicates that being one of the top brands to spring to mind initially has a high correlation with eventual purchase. 

Another central value of brand-building is the price premium you can command. Price is generally considered to be one of the biggest levers of profit growth, and one of the biggest contributors to price insensitivity is brand strength. So, it’s about future sales and the margin you can make on those future sales – which is of course a major part of how stock valuation is built. (For more on how to win internal conversations on the value of brand investment, see here.) 

Of course, all of that takes time, and must be complemented by the ‘short’: lead generation – the type that’s naturally more measurable because the path to purchase is more direct. 

Long-term metrics for long-term tactics

So, to pick up the thread: when we assess long-term tactics like brand-building – which is generally the primary aim of B2B media relations – by short-term metrics, we risk missing part of the picture. The truly meaningful measures of long-term brand-building efforts, such as media relations, are growth in brand awareness or salience, and brand perceptions versus direct and indirect competitors and how these change over time. 

Choosing the right reporting for you 

Where does that leave reporting? The first thing to say is that almost all reporting is valuable as long as you’re using it in the right way. A monthly list of coverage with details on the publication’s reach and overall view on KPI progress is a really helpful way to assess whether your media relations team is delivering what you agreed. Plenty of our clients opt for this route and it works well for them. 

If – as a growing number of our clients choose – you can get an integrated report that considers the full range of marketing tactics in the round and links aspects like coverage to web traffic, that is even better – as long as you recognize that this is only part of the value of the media relations program. 

Best of all, of course, is proper independent audience research, completed annually. That will show you the real impact of your activities and shape your future strategy. Of course, that costs money. Money well spent, I’d argue, since it allows you to optimize your broader marketing investment, but it’s not feasible for all. We’re a pragmatic bunch and are always exploring options to fit all budgets – whether that’s using Share of Search or smaller focus groups. 

Whatever route you choose, the key is to be intentional in the way you use it to ensure you’re not missing part of the picture.  

If any of this has whetted your appetite for more meaningful metrics, contact our team of strategists.  

By Ellie Jackson, Chief Client Strategy Officer

$4.7 trillion. That’s what Forrester forecasts will be invested globally on marketing in 2025. Of course, the age-old question is how much of that will deliver the brand-building return it should. 

One way of assessing that is to consider brand distinctiveness: the extent to which the audience recognizes your brand assets or ‘codes’ (logo, colors, slogans, etc.). After all, marketing material or an advertisement that is not associated with your brand in the mind of your target audience might as well be one for your competitor. 

A recent report by Jones Knowles Ritchie and Ipsos tested five key brand assets (logos, slogans, mascots, color and product) with more than 26,000 respondents globally. Only 15% of assets tested were found to be truly distinctive. In other words, 85% of that $4.7 trillion (just shy of $4 trillion) is being invested in sub-optimal brand assets.  

How does this translate to the bottom line?

It has been said that presenting brand consistency across all platforms can increase revenues by up to 23%. Fairly logically, consistent brands are 3.5 times more likely to have excellent brand visibility than those with inconsistent branding. And perhaps most important of all, 82% of investors say name recognition plays a crucial role in guiding them in their investment decisions. 

What does this mean for my brand?

If you’re concerned about the distinctiveness of your own brand assets, and by extension, the impact of your marketing and advertising, read on. 

Most brands have a number of brand assets. Several brands have more than they ought – especially if they have not reviewed brand assets in several years. New ideas creep in all the time – some stay and become part of the brand language. Having too many brand assets is a natural enemy of brand asset distinctiveness – your brand will only be afforded a fraction of space in the mind of your target audience and simplicity is key here. 

While you might not have Ipsos’s resources at your fingertips, you can still make certain assessments in a structured way. 

1. Create a list of all of your brand assets. Cast the net wide at this stage: logo, colors, graphical elements, style, slogans and tag lines etc. You might want to include historical elements too – they may be worth resurrecting. 

2. Rate each asset for familiarity (how many people associate your brand with this code) and uniqueness (how many people in the sample group ONLY associate your brand with this code). Ideally, you would do this with independent research – and there are relatively cost-effective options out there for something this simple. If that’s not a possibility then you will need to resort to an anecdotal assessment – gather views internally and with trusted industry participants. While this is no match for rigorous third-party assessment, it serves a purpose. 

3. Plot each asset on a grid. The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute model pictured below is the standard, and it works well. 

As the Ipsos x JKR study says: put your money where your mark is. 

If this has sparked any questions about your own brand strategy, get in touch. 

By Ellie Jackson, Chief Client Strategy Officer

Earlier this month, Kantar released its annual Most Valuable Brands report, and if you haven’t already, I’d highly recommend taking a look. Although the title suggests a focus on the world’s biggest names, there are several universal truths for companies with fewer 000s on their bottom line too. 

It’s not unusual, in our niche B2B sectors in particular, for investment in brand strategy, positioning or brand assets to be dismissed by a Board or CFO as an expense rather than a strategic value-adding activity. That’s on us. Historically, the marketing industry hasn’t always done a great job of dispelling this myth, but it’s increasingly important that we do. As ever, this report does a great job of underpinning some of the key arguments with recent data. Here are some of the key takeaways: 

Businesses that invest in their brands outperform the market… and investing in your brand remains the most powerful way to grow.

This correlates with a wealth of similar research, such as that from May this year from Brand Finance, which stated in its Global Most Valuable B2B Brands Index 2023:  “Research finds that the returns of highly branded organizations (i.e. companies with a high brand value to business value ratio) outperform the S&P 500.” 

That’s all underpinned by the most recent data suggesting that the value of intangible assets in the S&P 500 has soared to 90% of the total value. While that’s not all brand, that figure has tripled over the last 30-40 years, and one of the main factors is the growth of the importance of brand value in purchasing decisions. 

Strong brands deliver superior shareholder returns, are more resilient in times of crisis, and recover more quickly.

A strong brand gives you salience, which is key when it comes to sales consideration (or getting on the RFP or tender list, for many of our clients), but it also buys you resilience in tough times. Lots of research, most recently looking at the recent pandemic-affected period, has confirmed that organizations with stronger brands are hit less hard by an economic downturn, both in the severity and the length of the impact.   

It stands to reason: one of the classic elements of the brand discussion is the price premium a strong brand can enable you to command, protecting margin when others are damaging their brand and bottom line with price cuts. 

As Paul Coxhill, CEO of  WARC says in the earlier-cited Brand Finance B2B report: “…the ability to charge a premium in price can be heavily influenced by perceptions of value; and [that] long-term sales growth – as well as short-term conversion – relies on having a clear promise across all parts of the organization, amplified by marketing.” 

The other key point here is the trust inspired by a strong brand. That is of particular value in a time of broader economic challenges, when consumers and clients are typically extra diligent in their purchasing decisions. 

And of course, it’s well-documented that organizations with strong brands recover better from self-inflicted crises than those without. Of course, the way the crisis is handled is critical, but the rebound tends to come more swiftly when the foundations are solid. 

So, how do you create a strong brand?

Kantar’s report explores this, too. They identify the following elements: 

• “Meaningful: The extent to which brands create clear and consistent functional and emotional connections with consumers. Meaningful brands meet people’s needs in a way that demonstrates warmth. 
• Different: The extent to which a brand is seen to offer something that others don’t and lead the way. Different brands are hard to substitute and often offer something new. 
• Salient: The mental availability of the brand – how quickly and easily it comes to mind when choosing between options.  A brand’s most fundamental role is as a short-cut for decision-making.” 

The most important contributor of these to market share growth, is difference

(based on 1313 brands tracked over 3-4 years, in work reviewed and backed by the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School). The research doesn’t stop there. An even larger study by Kantar Analytics Practice recently investigated 11,000 case studies and summarized the key building blocks of ‘difference’ as: 

• “Category Leadership: Setting the trends and challenging the status quo 

• Distinctiveness: A highly distinctive look and feel and a suite of assets to reinforce this 
• Emotive clarity: Building clear and strong emotional connections with consumers 
• Functional benefits: Superior qualities that can help to set them apart from others” 

As marketers, there is a limit to what we can do on the last bullet point (though a strong, evidence-backed knowledge of clients’ needs and wants gleaned from market research should obviously be passed to R&D teams). Similarly, the first point is broader than marketing alone, though we should be making our voice heard and ensuring that such leadership is strongly communicated to all stakeholders. 

But on points two and three, we can lead the charge. Too often we see companies with visual assets that do not reflect the brand today, or simply applied so inconsistently as to dilute their potential. Those problems do not have to be difficult to fix. Layer on top of that strong messaging, that lays the foundations to build that emotive clarity with consumers – something we argue is still important, but often underplayed in the B2B world, and you’re on the way to strengthening your brand, with all of the financial benefits that follow. 

If you’re thinking of making and investment in your brand, we’d love to explore the opportunity with you: contact our team of brand strategists.