Blog Posts Archives - Page 7 of 18

Blog Posts

Understanding Consumers: What Drives Checkout

January 28, 2022

Sam Richardson

Path to purchase, Role of Search and Marketing Mix Modelling

Depending on what your brand is selling, the way to drive consumers’ purchase varies greatly. The approach towards a purchase is different depending on what the product is. For example people that are looking to buy a new expensive tech gadget will look into different options and research different brands, while those who are going to pick an every day item from a supermarket shelf will be influenced predominantly by the pack and the different options available in that moment.

So how can you make your brand be the final choice for people?

Path to Purchase

For lower value products like soft drinks, sweets and tinned goods there are many factors that can influence the final purchase decision. Everything consumers interact with affects what they’ll end up buying. Here at Nepa, we wanted to understand what impact each leg of the journey had on the purchasing power.

When it comes to FMCG items, consumers will often have an idea of the product they want to purchase, but not so much the brand. By understanding the path to purchase, brands are able to navigate consumers’ minds and end up in their baskets – step by step. For example, a strong brand is found early in the path to purchase and is resistant to the input from brands and their promotions, up to checkout. An even stronger brand can influence a consumer towards a purchase they would not normally make.

P2P insights are like a Rubik’s cube, every turn can create something different. Each tile represents a way we can break down the data, the demographic, the product, the brand, and the channel. With this breakdown of data, we can understand the power of each touchpoint in driving purchase conversion. We can also learn what stops a consumer in their path to purchase or what can send them in a different direction. By understanding people, we can see how much paid, owned, and earned touchpoints impact the path to purchase, and guide it accordingly.

Role of Search

Path to Purchase is great to understand how consumers are purchashing smaller goods, but when it comes to more expensive products (think cars and tech) the role of search is arguably more important. People will think long and hard on where they want to spend their money. Research, compare, and research again; we’re not just picking from a shelf.

At Nepa we collect passive data from participants, taken from their screens when researching a product. This allows us to observe the way people interact with what they see on their screens, what they click on and what they search.

Consumers tend to do two types of searches, category or branded. Category search means looking for a product with no brand preference, ‘best phones of 2022’ or ‘which car should I get’. Whereas a branded search is looking for a specific branded item ‘what Ford is the best’ or ‘difference between iPhone 12 and Pro’. By looking at consumers’ interactions we can understand what products are being noticed and which factors are more important to win the purchase.

Understanding where a consumer has searched online allows us to help brands understand where they need to be seen in order for their digital touchpoints to drive consumers down the funnel into purchase conversion.

Marketing Mix Modelling

As mentioned, P2P analysis is great for holistic omnichannel insights while Role of Search is ideal for full funnel analysis of lower frequency of purchase items e.g. tech and automotive products; but when you’re want to understand where to get your best bang for buck there’s a lot more to consider. In this case brands need to optimise how they spend money on their advertising campaigns and really think about the effectiveness of each channel. To support brands in taking these decisions, we looked at several campaigns in the space of three years, and measured sales across channels. We were then able to create a model which looked at what factors have influenced the success – or not – of each channel. This can help brands understand exactly which touch points in a marketing strategy impact sales most.

The success of a campaign depends on a number of factors. For example, we look at the seasonality, the existence of external factors (COVID-19 to mention one), internal factors such as marketing and geographic distribution, and finally we analyse the media spread of the marketing. Together this economental model tells us just how much of each marketing channel can maximise the ROI. By understanding the ROI that each channel offers brands can optimise their budgets for best results.

Ultimately there are several approaches which will give different insights and help brands understand each piece of the purchase puzzle. Sometimes it might just be an MMM that’s needed. Other times it might be appropriate to overlay a P2P and an MMM. It all depends on the questions you’re trying to answer but each one can help unlock more value and drive more sales.

By Kit Sandford, Head of Analytics at Nepa UK

Want to know more? Contact us today and our brand experts will help you!

Blog Posts

Nepa Brand Impact Series

January 26, 2022

Sam Richardson

Insights are crucial for brands and it’s essential to know what to measure and how to measure it. During the last couple of months we have published 4 blog posts about brand – the Nepa Brand Impact Series by Robert Beatus, Head of R&D and John Palm, Senior Analyst R&D.

Read the entire series here:

How to measure your brand strength.

Block the background noise, listen to the music. Making your brand data more accurate and actionable.

Forget me not, how to stand out and be remembered.

Introduction to Brand Touch – are you Batman or the Joker?

Want to know more? Contact us today and our brand experts will help you!

Blog Posts

How to measure your brand strength

January 14, 2022

Karen Chandler

The US Engineer W. Edwards Deming once said, “just because you can measure everything, doesn’t mean you should”. In other words, if you’re training to run a marathon you would be interested in measuring your time and resistance, and not in how much you can bench press. Only by knowing what metrics are relevant to track your improvement, can you define an effective workout and reach your goals.

The same goes for brands. If you want to be able to improve your brand strength, you need to know what to measure and how to measure it. This is what we call finding the right KPIs. Most companies we meet struggle with choosing the right brand measures. They often rely on too many metrics (falling into the trap W. Edwards cited) and end up having too much data without a clear direction.

So how do you identify which are the right metrics for your brand? Let us guide you through four different approaches which brands can use to identify which KPIs are truly relevant for them to drive growth.

1. The core metric

Through brand tracking we can identify one or a few core KPIs; among the most common Salience, NPS, Affinity, Preference. There are several frameworks that can be used when selecting these KPIs – such as Aaker’s, Keller’s, or Sharp’s – but the main criteria is to evaluate external effectiveness and internal actionability. You need to know that improving the selected KPI will give you the benefits to business you desire and the required actions to improve it.

Relying on one selected KPI based on brand tracking has multiple benefits. Nailing your core measurement system provides clarity to the business and a direction for progression in the future, on top of that measuring too many operational KPIs has a cost. By using fewer KPIs insights teams can invest their time in showing the value of the data and insights they generate. Fewer KPIs reduces operational costs, meaning budgets can be reallocated across the business to drive action based on findings.

This is the most straightforward approach. However, its simple nature only focuses on one part of the picture and might not provide you with a holistic view.

2. The ultimate metric

This is an aggregated approach where multiple measurements are combined into one index. Through this approach you can identify one brand index based on several brand tracking metrics – such as centrality and distinctiveness – that can be used across markets and categories. These indexes are based on a combination of different KPIs and provide a holistic concept, supporting one common view of development.

If identified correctly, the same index can be used across markets and functions. Attentions will automatically be focused on the weakest metric, for each market to get the best effect on the total index, which often leads to the correct priorities.

3. The growth metric

American business magnate Warren Buffett once said that pricing power is “the single most important decision in evaluating a business”. Using an equity based KPI allows you to understand how your business’ activities connect to financial performance, a connection which is essential for making business decisions that drive growth. Our third approach measures pricing power as Willingness to Pay, which evaluates consumers’ willingness to pay a higher price for a product or service versus the competition through Choice Based Conjoint. By using WTP, sales are related to market share, guiding, and validating all brand building efforts directly to business growth.

It’s easy to connect this KPI within the organization. It is often beneficial to complement the WTP KPI with a more sales oriented KPI, such as market share, to measure short term financial effects of communication as well.

4. The engagement metric

Engagement can be based on different variables: word of mouth, mentions, likes, follows, shares, comments, click-throughs, organic search, website visits and so on. By tracking and combining these different elements you can obtain your engagement KPI.

This approach gives you direct access to consumers and immediate feedback. However, it isn’t the most accurate KPI as it’s based on so many channels, so it is best used in combination with other KPIs. At Nepa, we’re developing a Brand Health index using Primary Dynamic Factor Analysis, which can identify the underlying pattern of change in several measurements, removing the “noise” in the data to uncover actual brand development.

Ultimately, if you pick the wrong KPI for your brand objectives or too many KPIs to keep track of, you won’t be able to measure whether your strategy is effective or not. You won’t see the result that you’re expecting to see. But by training the right “brand muscle” and keeping track of your improvements you will be able to reach your end goal.

By Robert Beatus, Head of R&D at Nepa

Want to know more? Contact us today and our brand experts will help you!

Read also other Nepa Brand Series blog posts:

Block the background noise, listen to the music. Making your brand data more accurate and actionable.

Forget me not, how to stand out and be remembered.

Introduction to Brand Touch – are you Batman or the Joker?

Blog Posts

Coverage – Digital Doughnut – Who’s Winning Christmas?

December 30, 2021

Karen Chandler

LONDON, United Kingdom (December 30th, 2021) – Lindsay Parry, Managing Director Nepa UK, shares the top three festive brand mascots, according to consumers.

Click to read the full article here: Who’s Winning Christmas? – Digital Doughnut

Want to know more? Contact us today and our brand experts will help you!

Blog Posts

Forget me not, how to stand out and be remembered

December 16, 2021

Sam Richardson

According to Greek mythology, Zeus was naming all things on earth. Just when he thought he had finished, a tiny blue flower shouted, “forget me not!”. Just like these flowers, brands that want to be noticed and remembered need to fight for attention.

Brand salience is a brand’s mental availability in our memory, it measures how well people recognise or think about a brand while making purchase decisions. This an important part of brand equity, and it is a concept that can’t be measured with any standard single KPI due to its complicated nature.

A person’s memory is a network of different cognitive cues of stored interlinked information. Brand salience can best be understood by imagining the brand as a converging point in our memory, interlinked with different types of cognitive cues or associations, what we call Brand Assets. Brand Assets are key to effective communication, the salience of a brand is determined by the amount, relevance, and strength of these associations.

So how can you make your brand one to remember?

1. Use brand cues

The use of brand cues is crucial. Brand assets are the brand cues that help anchor your communication in consumers’ minds and create strong sender recall and brand salience. Strong brand assets are highly recognisable, unique, and can be applied across channels and over time. For example, one of our recent studies showed how by introducing more brand cues you can increase sender recall. We looked at four TV commercials, the same ad but different ways of making it memorable. We found that the most successful ad was the one that had more brand cues than the other three. By including the brand name at the beginning of the ad, a campaign tagline in the middle and a voiceover at the end with the brand name and campaign tagline, this ad’s memorability was over 10 p.p. stronger than the others.

2. Use the right brand cues

But the trick isn’t only in including more brand cues in your communications. You must identify what the right ones are first. At Nepa, we use a system one approach to capture instinctive associations, by asking respondents which brand they associate with several different images of brand cues. We then analyse response time for each question and focus on fast responses to capture the instinctive answers. As a result of this process, we’re able to identify how strong the link is between the cues tested, and the brand.

The outcome can sometimes be surprising. For example, colour is often thought to be a strong cue, a key part of a brand’s identity. But one of the studies we conducted for a leading brewing company showed us that fewer than half of consumers associated that brand with their flagship colour, and only 12% with their distinctive font. That same colour was in fact associated with three other brands, all of them competitors! The strongest cue, with 80% association, was a combination of different elements – the colour, the font, and a recognisable word. Only by understanding the role of different brand cues and identifying the strongest, can brands avoid the risk of using the wrong assets and creating communications that miss the mark.

3. Use the right brand cues and classify them

Once you’ve pinned down what your strong assets are, you then need to understand how these contribute to increase sender recall and your brand position. Brand cues can be classified as strategic or tactical. Strategic cues provide low sales impact but can have high sender recall, while tactical ones provide high sales effect but can have low sender recall. So, the tactical/purchase cues will lead to spontaneous sales, while the strategic/branding ones are great for building long-term brand equity. By classifying your cues you’ll be able to either identify how to drive sales or support your positioning, depending on your preferred outcome. You can also mix and balance your assets to push both your sales and brand equity.

Brand cues are the keys to unlocking consumers’ memory. If you know what your strong assets are, how to use them and how to make them work together to achieve your goals, you will never be a wall flower.

By John Palm, Senior Analyst R&D at Nepa

Want to know more? Contact us today and our brand experts will help you!

Read also other Nepa Brand Series blog posts:

Block the background noise, listen to the music. Making your brand data more accurate and actionable.

Introduction to Brand Touch – are you Batman or the Joker?

How to measure your brand strength.

Blog Posts

Block Background Noise – Make Your Brand Data Accurate & Actionable

December 10, 2021

Sam Richardson

Brand tracking is important. A continuous and holistic measurement of brand health and communications helps brands to face today’s challenges, such as a fragmented media landscape, differentiation and creating distinctive brand assets. But let’s face it, brand tracking isn’t always precise enough. Despite the vast increase in available data due to digitisation, the need for reliable and comprehensive insights has also increased significantly, as companies invest heavily in data driven analytics and insights-based decision making. With that in mind, we must recognise that data accuracy is an ongoing challenge.

One of the main challenges with brand tracking is to separate the actual signal from the noise caused by natural random error. Much tracking data is collected via cross-sectional tracking surveys where a sample of the population is asked a set of questions each week, aimed at understanding a brand’s current strength among its competitors. But samples aren’t representative of the entire population, and by sampling different groups of people each time – who might have a different background, and different experiences – the data can show differences that are not real. This means that all brand tracking data have a level of uncertainty – what we call the ‘noise’ in the data. This becomes a problem when the noise becomes louder than the music of truth. When fluctuations caused by sampling error outweigh true results, then it is almost impossible to identify the correct data.

On top of that, with the increase of campaigns on smaller channels – particularly digital – brand tracking becomes less relevant unless we’re able to measure all signals, including the weaker ones from a range of smaller marketing investments.

There are ways to tackle this issue, but not all of them are effective. Brands can increase their sample size. The more people you include in a sample, the better they are representing the total population. So, the uncertainty becomes smaller each time. The noise becomes quieter. This, however, is expensive. To turn this volume down and hear clearer messages you need to sample a huge number of people, and that’s often not financially feasible.

Another solution is to look at moving averages throughout a longer period of time (ranging from three to six months) But for the increasingly popular digital campaigns, which often only last a couple of weeks, looking at a three-month rolling average would mean losing track of the actual results. However, by using Nepa’s Brand Noise Reduction (BNR) you can get noise reduction without having to increase the sample size, even if you just look at a few weeks’ worth of data.

Like noise cancelling headphones BNR allows you to focus on the music. It finds patterns in the respondents’ data and identifies common variations due to the different samples, reducing random errors by up to 50% at no extra cost. This analysis boosts data accuracy and opens possibilities for more granular analysis.

Nepa’s Brand Noise Reduction analyses all the information within respondent-level data. It identifies the correlations between all respondents answer patterns, and their fluctuations throughout a period of time. As a result, BNR is able to distinguish shifts that are due to plain sample variations from those that reflect real market changes.

In a time when everything is moving so fast, insights are crucial for and brands can’t compromise on data accuracy. Find your melody, reduce the noise, and enjoy the concert.

By Robert Beatus, Head of R&D Nepa

Want to know more? Contact us today and our brand experts will help you!

Read also other Nepa Brand Series blog posts:

Forget me not, how to stand out and be remembered.

Introduction to Brand Touch – are you Batman or the Joker?

How to measure your brand strength.

Blog Posts

Introduction to Brand Touch – are you Batman or the Joker?

November 30, 2021

Sam Richardson

Every good story has a hero and a villain. We can all picture the hero being brave, honest, and altruistic. While the villain often has less likeable traits. However, the bad guy can still appeal to our emotional side. To the point where we sometimes prefer the underdog to the knight in shining armour.

This is because, when it comes to personalities – whether it’s a person, a character, or a brand – there’s no black or white, but a rainbow of a million different shades.

Defining your brand personality is no easy task, but it determines consumer perception and helps you shape the most successful way to communicate. This is where Brand Touch comes to the rescue.

Brand personality is developed through the interaction within a market, its environment, and consumers. There are two key elements to a brand personality, internal and external. The internal one is the emotion which consumers experience in association with a certain brand, whilst the external is how a brand present itself.

Brand Touch measures how different personality traits are perceived in the market, and then creates a mapped-out profile of a brand’s personality. Parameters such as extroversion and agreeableness are evaluated, plotted, and graphed to create a detailed analysis of a brand’s identity. This approach helps your brand align its current perception with the desired one, and to visualise its personality within the market.

There are no good or bad traits as such. It’s all about how a brand is perceived, and how this perception relates to each trait of the personality. For example, no one wants to be the villain. But having some “negative” traits in your brand personality might work better for you than being 100% hero. Villains tend to be more self-confident, and individualistic. So, while Batman attracts the larger audience, the Joker might be able to drive price more effectively.

To understand what’s the most successful personality for your brand, you need to define your main mission. By identifying your brand KPIs you will then be able to figure out what personality traits relate to each of those. Some traits – even the ones that you might think you don’t want to have – will help you meet your KPIs, while some others – that sound more desirable – might have the opposite effect. A brand can be perceived as down to earth, but it can also be seen as competitive. It’s only by having this mix of personality traits that you can create something unique and really differentiate your brand.

Brand personality doesn’t have to be fixed, it’s something that should change depending on what your priorities are, what you want to communicate, and to whom.

For example, we’ve been supporting an international retailer to re-position themselves as a younger, and cooler brand. Through Brand Touch we’ve analysed and understood what their positioning was at the time, and then we’ve evaluated some possible future brand concepts. By analysing these concepts to understand how they’d align with their current brand it emerged that although their idea of repositioning was valuable, it was too distant from their current brand image. So, changing too fast could have risked alienating and losing current consumers. Brand Touch addressed our client in a clear direction, and the brand decided to move forward with the new positioning but at a slower rate. This allowed them to attract new consumers while retaining the older “fanbase”.

By understanding what your brand personality is, you can compare your positioning to your closest competitors and either adapt it to fill in a gap or own a particular trait of your personality and dominate that space. This self-awareness is also important when presenting new products or if you’re repositioning your brand.

For example, if you have a distinct personality, you’ll be able to identify the right advertising partnerships. Employing a celebrity who is family-oriented and welcoming can either reinforce your brand perception or shift it to present a more welcoming and caring image.

Getting to know your brand’s personality is just like getting to know a person. It’s not always straightforward and it can be unexpected. But without a personality a brand is just an empty shell, just like our hero without a villain.

By Robert Beatus, Head of R&D Nepa and John Palm, R&D Senior Analyst

Want to know more? Contact us today and our brand experts will help you!

Read also other Nepa Brand Series blog posts:

Block the background noise, listen to the music. Making your brand data more accurate and actionable.

Forget me not, how to stand out and be remembered.

How to measure your brand strength

Blog Posts

Nepa & RealityMine Webinar – Drive Growth: Strategic Marketing Insights

November 26, 2021

Sam Richardson

Webinar: How to drive growth with strategic marketing insights by Kalle Backlund, Head of MMM and Kit Sandford, Head of Analytics.

14^th December at 3pm UK time, 4 pm CET.

Nepa and RealityMine invite you to a webinar about “How to drive growth with strategic marketing insights”.

There are several different approaches to support you in setting marketing strategy. Which one should you choose to meet your business needs, and why? In this Webinar, we will address which approaches you should use to gain the insight you need to drive strategic change in today’s complex landscape.

The Webinar will be hosted by Chris Havemann, CEO of RealityMine. He’ll be joined by Kalle Backlund, Head of MMM at Nepa and Kit Sandford, Head of Analytics at Nepa. Kalle has 10 years’ experience from analytics roles in research and product. Expert at using advanced analytics to solve business challenges, focusing on Marketing Optimization. Kit has 10 years’ experience of consumer and shopper behaviour using big data and market research at Dunnhumby, WPP and Nepa.

Sign up for the webinar here.

Blog Posts

The meaning of sustainability for Indian consumers

November 8, 2021

Sam Richardson

An increasing number of brands consider sustainability an integral part of their business and communications strategy. After all, sustainable life on earth is widely considered as the most critical issue of our time, for governments, society, and organisations. When it comes to the ‘green’ agenda, the implementation of environmentally friendly initiatives has the potential to change the way economies and trades operate. A change in societal behavior could encourage the adoption of more environmentally sound consumption.

With these issues in mind, we set out on a journey to understand how and if sustainability matters for the Indian urban consumer. The aim of the study was to help brands understand consumer perspective of sustainability and how they can communicate these efforts in a more engaging and efficient way. We interviewed 2,000 consumers across eight metros in India. We also met with industry experts across different sectors, to understand these topics from a business perspective.

Sustainable doesn’t necessarily mean green

The world is consuming resources at an unsustainable rate, and therefore our production of goods is increasing. This is a result of economic growth. But how important is it to consumers to adopt a lifestyle which is considered sustainable?

66% of adults said it is extremely important to them, however, the issues that Indian consumers perceive as most important to sustainability are different from classic ‘green’ issues. More than half (54%) said equal rights for all should be in place. While 53% believe that companies need to provide gender equality, and 50% believe that businesses should provide decent work and economic growth.

Parity, inclusiveness and themes about education, health and well-being top the charts. Micro themes relating to the environment appear as only runners-up. This is in contrast to comparative studies we have carried out in other markets, where matters such as environmentally friendly energy appear in the top five sustainability issues.

READ ALSO: Maximize ROI on Sustainability

Brand perception

Using our brand positioning model, Brand Touch, we looked at consumer perceptions of brands that are associated with sustainability. We found out which personality traits sustainable brands have in common, and which traits bind together those that are not considered sustainable.

People perceive sustainable brands as friendly and helpful. They are thought of as more inclusive and ‘we-oriented’. Organisations perceived as supportive, down-to-earth and empathic are building an eco-friendly image and tend to be more popular. By connecting with people on an emotional level and increasing the level of trust, brands can move in consumers’ minds from being ‘nice-to-have’, to ‘essential’.

On the other hand, brands that are not strongly associated with sustainability are perceived as expensive, impatient, and commercial. So, if these brands want to be taken seriously when they start talking about sustainability, they need to prove their benefits and values to consumers first.

Brand loyalty

While there are many characteristics that can lead to brand loyalty, sustainability is key. One in two consumers remained loyal throughout lockdown to businesses considered environmentally safe – especially in categories such as FMCG and IoT which successfully marketed their sustainability commitments. If brands communicate their sustainability efforts effectively shoppers might change their brand choice to favour sustainability.

India is a solid, conscious, ambitious market. If you’re a brand in India, it is essential to understand the context and what is the consumer understanding of a certain topic. Talking about sustainability including issues that go beyond “green”, can help brands been perceived as more holistically sustainable. By using the right tone of voice and approaching issues that resonate with consumers brands will maximize the impact of their communication.

Learn more

If you want to know more about the learnings of our report and how your company can benefit from these insights, please do not hesitate to contact our Nepa India team.

Esha Nagar, Managing Director, Nepa India

Blog Posts

Coverage: Customer Experience Magazine

October 25, 2021

Sam Richardson

Sam Richardson

Insights are crucial for brands and it’s essential to know what to measure and how to measure it. During the last couple of months we have published 4 blog posts about brand – the Nepa Brand Impact Series by Robert Beatus, Head of R&D and John Palm, Senior Analyst R&D.

Read the entire series here:

Karen Chandler

Read also other Nepa Brand Series blog posts:

Karen Chandler

LONDON, United Kingdom (December 30th, 2021) – Lindsay Parry, Managing Director Nepa UK, shares the top three festive brand mascots, according to consumers.

Sam Richardson

Read also other Nepa Brand Series blog posts:

Sam Richardson

Read also other Nepa Brand Series blog posts:

Sam Richardson

Read also other Nepa Brand Series blog posts:

Sam Richardson

Webinar: How to drive growth with strategic marketing insights by Kalle Backlund, Head of MMM and Kit Sandford, Head of Analytics.

14th December at 3pm UK time, 4 pm CET.

Sign up for the webinar here.

Sam Richardson

Sustainable doesn’t necessarily mean green

Brand perception

Brand loyalty

Learn more

Sam Richardson

How can advertisers maximise social media potential?

14^th December at 3pm UK time, 4 pm CET.