Sam Richardson

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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!

Karen Chandler

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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?

Sam Richardson

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STOCKHOLM, Sweden (September 21st, 2021) – Nepa, a leading Consumer Research and analytics company, has been chosen by Svenska Spel Tur to implement and run a continuous brand tracking and campaign measurement program to help Svenska Spel Tur understand and develop its brands and monitor competitor performance on the Swedish market.

“The brand tracking and campaign measurement program provided by Nepa has enabled us to reach higher levels of insights and to drive data-driven progresses and is therefore a perfect match to us and how we want to develop our brands in the future.” said Mimmi Lagerquist, Market Analyst at Svenska Spel.

“We are very proud to be partnering with Svenska Spel and to help implement a continuous Brand Tracking and Campaign Measurement program which enables the development and growth of so many well-known brands through a close working partnership.” said Ulrich Boyer, CEO at Nepa.

The brand tracking and campaign measurement program’s initial term is 4 yrs.

About Svenska Spel

Svenska Spel is Sweden’s leading gaming company. The Svenska Spel Group wants gaming to be enjoyed by all and includes three business areas: Sport & Casino with well-known brands such as Stryktipset and Oddset, Tur with popular brands such as Triss and Lotto, and Casino Cosmopol & Vegas with three international casinos and Vegas video lottery terminals in restaurants and bingo halls. Svenska Spel is the country’s biggest sponsor of Swedish sport, at both elite level and grass-roots level. The company has around 1,400 employees with its head office in Visby. For more information, go to www.svenskaspel.se

Contact information:

Ulrich Boyer, CEO

Maria Skolgata 83, 118 53 Stockholm, Sweden

+46 708 22 66 18 ulrich.boyer@nepa.com

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

Sam Richardson

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LONDON, United Kingdom (July 20th, 2021) – International fashion retailer Mango has partnered with brand health experts Nepa for brand tracking and campaign measurement in 5 key markets across Europe and the US.

Nepa will track consumer perceptions of the brand and its competitors to help Mango’s brand strategy team and communication department understand the perceptions and impact of the company’s marketing campaigns.

Nepa was chosen because of its expertise in brand tracking, brand value and brand health, data analytics and visualization capabilities. The partnership will focus on defining the attributes and values that are important to Mango’s target groups and how to communicate them in the most efficient way. The goal is to help Mango develop its communications strategy in order to maximise the long and short term impact on brand and sales.

Lindsay Parry, Managing Director at Nepa UK said, “Knowing your perceived strengths and weaknesses in the eyes of the consumer means you can pull the right levers in how you define your brand and boost your communications. We’re delighted to have been chosen to help Mango take this important step in optimising their communication strategies.”

Ingo Kerstjens, Brand Strategist at Mango said, “Our partnership with Nepa started because we wanted to gain a clear picture of how we are perceived by fashion buyers. Through its crystal-clear insights and to the point analysis, Nepa is giving us fresh eyes on where our brand is heading and where we need to go to build growth”.

About MANGO
MANGO was founded in 1984 and is today one of the leading fashion groups in the world. Based in its city of origin, Barcelona, the company has an extensive store network of 803,000 m2 in 110 countries.

From its “El Hangar” Design Centre in Palau-solità i Plegamans, every year it designs more than 18,000 garments and accessories for wearing the season’s trends. The company closed 2020 with sales of 1.842 billion euros. More information at http://www.mango.com

Contact information:
P-O Westerlund, CEO
Nepa AB, Maria Skolgata 83, 118 53 Stockholm, Sweden

+46 706 404 824 p-o.westerlund@nepa.com

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

Sam Richardson

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STOCKHOLM, Sweden (May 20th, 2020) – Nepa, a leading Consumer Research and analytics company, providing insight solutions to drive brand and sales by increasing marketing effectiveness, has been chosen by Varner to implement and run a brand tracking program to help Varner understand how its own brands perform on their main markets.

“The brand tracking service provided by Nepa has enabled us to monitor brand performance on a chain- and group level. This enables us to identify growth potential for individual chains and for the group, as well as learning more about how individual brand concepts are performing and how they potentially could be strengthened.” Said Knut Vidar Nilsen, Chief Marketing Officer at Varner.

“Varner is a very exciting customer and partner for us, as they have so many well-known brands with their own potentials and business challenges under the same roof. They furthermore aspire to be a leading fashion company in Scandinavia driven by consumer insights, which makes our partnership a perfect fit.” Said P-O Westerlund, CEO at Nepa.

About Varner

VARNER is one of the largest fashion retailers in Scandinavia, with nearly 11.000 employees and 1.400 stores across 7 countries. VARNER consists of the fashion brands Cubus, Dressmann, Dressmann XL, Bik Bok, Carlings, Volt, Urban, WOW, Junkyard and franchises Levi’s Store, and Nike Store.

Contact information:
P-O Westerlund, CEO

Maria Skolgata 83, 118 53 Stockholm, Sweden

+46 706 404 824 p-o.westerlund@nepa.com

Sam Richardson

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Increase marketing effectiveness through deeper understanding.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (May 26th, 2020) – Nepa, a leading Consumer Research and analytics company, providing insight solutions to drive brand and sales by increasing marketing effectiveness, has extended its long-term collaboration with Kindred Group plc, operator of 11 of Europe’s most successful online gambling brands including Unibet, 32Red and Maria Casino to implement and run a next generation brand tracking programme to help them understand all their main markets, set goals and drive growth going forward.

“We’ve worked with Nepa for more than 10 years to optimise our marketing strategy and they really demonstrated good, in-depth understanding of our business and the opportunities for growth by developing, from the ground up, a fresh and innovative brand tracking programme which also captures detailed player behaviours and attitudes. Online gambling is such a fast moving sector and we know our players also do lots more in their spare time so getting a total view of behaviours and brand perceptions in each market will be a vital component in our strategy going forward,” said Elen Barber, Chief Marketing Officer at Kindred.

“Kindred is one of the leaders in Responsible Gambling and Player Safety so we are thrilled to be working with them doing what we do best, identifying opportunities for growth”, said P-O Westerlund, CEO at Nepa.

About Kindred

Kindred Group is one of the world’s leading online gambling operators with business across Europe, Australia and the USA, offering over 27 million customers across 11 brands a great form of entertainment in a safe, fair and sustainable environment. The company, which employs over 1,600 people, is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm Large Cap and is a founding member of the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) and founding member of IBIA (International Betting Integrity Association). Kindred Group is audited and certified by eCOGRA for compliance with the 2014 EU Recommendation on Consumer Protection and Responsible Gambling (2014/478/EU).

Contact
P-O Westerlund
CEO
Maria Skolgata 83, 118 53 Stockholm, Sweden
+46 706 404 824 p-o.westerlund@nepa.com

Sam Richardson

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The old saying “out of sight – out of mind” is never as true as when it comes to brand awareness. The brands that consumers are continuously exposed to are the ones that stay top of mind. But how do you know your target audience’s brand awareness, if you don’t use brand tracking?

What is Brand Awareness?

Brand awareness is the relationship your audience has with your brand. It therefore includes if people recognize your brand, how they relate to it, what their sentiment regarding your brand is and how they convert to purchase. Having a high brand awareness means people respond well to your brand, are more loyal and also more likely to recommend your brand to their peers. Brand tracking metrics are therefore crucial to making the right brand decisions.

How do you measure Brand Awareness?

So how do you then measure your brand awareness? The answer is continuous brand tracking! With a good brand tracking method, you are able to understand your audience’s awareness of your brand, and thus know how they interact with it. But your job is not finished by just doing continuous brand tracking.

Challenge when Brand Tracking different consumer groups

You probably sell to many different consumers. Not all of your target groups are likely to have the same brand awareness, so you need to break them down to different niche groups. It could be people in specific geographic regions, of different ages and genders, that have varying educational or income levels.

Brand tracking allows you to get a clearer picture of each group. This in turn gives you relevant information of what your goals should be for each. For one group you might want to keep your current level and focus on performance marketing, while for other groups you might need more targeted efforts. You therefore need to track your brand’s performance with regards to these different consumer groups.

READ ALSO: Benefits of Path to Purchase Analysis

Nepa understands Brand Tracking

Keeping all these brand metrics relevant, accessible and actionable might seem like a lot of work. But when using Nepa’s proven brand tracking system and taking advantage of the many years of experience we have, recurring brand tracking becomes easy, quick, effective and actually really fun. At every turn of the road, you know what lies ahead, how your audiences respond to your brand and how to keep the right balance between your brand awareness activities and your performance activities.

Want to know more about how we can help your company? Contact us and we’ll tell you all about it!

Sam Richardson

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If you are new to marketing, or have just taken over a brand, then your first order of business should be to start brand tracking. Knowing the health of your and is a fundamental component when making business decisions.

In the field of marketing there are lots of different activities and tasks you should be doing to various degrees. But there is one thing you should never skimp on, and that’s your brand tracking. Knowing how consumers perceive your brand is the basis for all your business decisions, and without it you risk running away from your customers, rather than running towards them.

To drive sales you need to understand your customers

Sure, you need to do performance-focused activities – planning your sales funnel, customer journeys and all the things that drive sales. But before all that, you need to understand your customers opinion of your brand, as their opinion lays the foundation for how they prefer to interact with your business. Without that knowledge your performance marketing activities are like shooting arrows in the dark. Sure, you might hit your target, but with brand tracking you turn the lights on and can zoom in for a bullseye.

Many who have worked in the marketing industry for a longer time already know this, and probably already have a well developed procedure for continuously tracking their brand. But starting out, it can be hard to know exactly how to go about it, and what the most efficient and reliable method is.

Continuous brand tracking keeps the lights on your brand

We at Nepa strive to make continuous brand tracking as easy and cost-efficient as possible for our clients. We want them to focus their efforts on performance based activities, with the assured knowledge that their brand is on track with their customers.

Brand tracking is the basics of brand management, but it should not constitute a major part of your working day. Make sure that you have the results at hand, so you can keep hitting the bullseye.

Nepa Brand Health Tracking drives your business forward.

Want to know more about Nepa Brand Health Tracking? Contact us today to speak with an expert!

Sam Richardson

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Understand and increase marketing effectiveness through deeper understanding of the market.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (Feb 4th, 2020) – Nepa, a leading Consumer Research and analytics company, providing insight solutions to drive brand and sales by increasing marketing effectiveness, has been chosen by GANT to implement and run a brand tracking program to help GANT understand all their main markets, set goals and drive growth going forward.

“We chose Nepa as a brand insight partner after doing a study with them where they really showed their skills in understanding our brand and our opportunities. Since this is a global assignment, the collaboration will be an important component in our strategy going forward since our brand’s strength is of highest priority for us.” said Eleonore Säll, Executive Vice President of Global Brand at GANT.

“GANT is an iconic brand and we are absolutely thrilled to be working with them with what we do best, brand tracking and advisory on multiple markets as a fundament for effective building of brand and business,” said P-O Westerlund, CEO at Nepa.

About GANT

GANT is the original American lifestyle brand with European sophistication, offering premium clothing, accessories and home furnishings for men, women and kids. Born in 1949 on the campuses of the American East Coast universities and raised in Europe, GANT enjoys a global presence in over 70 markets, 750 stores and 4,000 selected retailers. Please visit gant.com for more information.

About Nepa

Headquartered in Stockholm, with offices in Norway, Finland, Denmark, UK, USA, and India, we help some of the world’s most reputable brands in more than 50 countries to optimize customer experience investments and get more effect out of their marketing and sales. Nepa has been awarded DI Gasell’s award for organic fast-growing companies six times since 2011. The company is publicly traded at the Nasdaq First North Growth Market stock exchange since 2016. Erik Penser Bank AB is Nepa’s Certified Adviser (phone: +46 8-463 83 00, e-mail: certifiedadviser@penser.se).

Contact
P-O Westerlund
CEO
Maria Skolgata 83, 118 53 Stockholm, Sweden
+46 706 404 824 p-o.westerlund@nepa.com

Sam Richardson

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Performance marketing KPIs get a lot of attention these days, and that’s understandable. But, if that’s all you’re looking at, you might remind us of the guy at the gym who only works on his biceps. Real strength is core strength, and the right way to improve it is through brand health tracking.

Here are some thoughts on why to focus on your brand’s “core strength,” and an invitation to take our free assessment.

1. Strong brands = efficient sales

A brand with core strength creates many benefits: premium pricing power, a loyal cohort of repeat customers, strength in retail partnerships, and more. A consistent finding in our Marketing Effectiveness work is that a strong brand can command premium pricing, withstand competitive pressure, and deliver efficient growth. While the way brands and consumers interact each other is certainly changing, the benefits of strong brand will remain constant.

2. Consumers establish personal relationships with brands

For modern consumers with nearly unlimited choice, brand preference is influenced by elements beyond the product or service. Today, a brand may represent personal topics like social values and politics in more personal relationships with consumers. This is a great opportunity for brands – but it also makes them more susceptible to reputational threats. In the social media age, where one tweet can erase millions of dollars from an established brand’s equity, it’s critical to continuously measure a brand’s health.

3. Challengers are threatening established brands on more fronts and at a faster pace

Established brands that have been on shelves for decades, or even centuries, are now forced to adapt to ecommerce. Adding to the complexity is the rise of private label competitors, delivery services, and third-party sellers. Technology enables brands to be created at an unprecedented speed – crowdfunding campaigns, easier access to manufacturing and direct to consumer distribution have reduced barriers to enter almost every product category. A name drop from the right social media influencer can catapult awareness to millions of followers.

In this environment, both established brands and the challengers that are looking to unseat them need to cultivate the health of their brands.

4. Choosing the right brand-building media mix

The media landscape today is a beast – aptly described as a “spaghetti bowl” by one of our clients – and more dollars are being allocated to performance channels that are unproven for brand-building. These changes in marketing channels and allocation of marketing spend will have a profound impact on a brands’ reputation. Smart marketers are incorporating metrics that allow them to measure the effect that their media mix has on brand health.

Is it time for a brand health check-up?

There are many reasons that brand health is more critical than ever as challenger and established brands alike navigate a new business environment that is unfolding at an incredible speed. Maintaining a healthy brand requires reliable measurement tools to track important brand KPIs.

We’ve created this brand tracking assessment to help you determine if you’ve got the right tools in place. Click here to get started.

Blog Posts

Nepa Brand Impact Series

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:

Blog Posts

How to measure your brand strength

Karen Chandler

Read also other Nepa Brand Series blog posts:

Blog Posts

Svenska Spel Selects Nepa for Brand Tracking & Campaign Measurement

Sam Richardson

Blog Posts

Mango partners with Nepa for brand tracking and campaign measurement

Sam Richardson

Blog Posts

Varner chooses Nepa for their brand tracking program

Sam Richardson

Blog Posts

Kindred Extends Brand Tracking & Player Insight Partnership with Nepa

Sam Richardson

Blog Posts

Brand Tracking is key to increase Brand Awareness

Sam Richardson

What is Brand Awareness?

How do you measure Brand Awareness?

Challenge when Brand Tracking different consumer groups

Nepa understands Brand Tracking

Blog Posts

Brand tracking – your most valuable marketing tool

Sam Richardson

To drive sales you need to understand your customers

Continuous brand tracking keeps the lights on your brand

Blog Posts

Global Brand GANT selects Nepa as Brand Tracking Provider in Markets

Sam Richardson

About GANT

About Nepa

Blog Posts

Brand Health Measurement: Developing Your Brand’s Core Strength

Sam Richardson

1. Strong brands = efficient sales

2. Consumers establish personal relationships with brands

3. Challengers are threatening established brands on more fronts and at a faster pace

4. Choosing the right brand-building media mix

Is it time for a brand health check-up?