Brand tracking depends on continuity, which is exactly why the questionnaire can become hard to change when the category changes around it. Familiar funnel measures show movement; they may not explain it.
Three Ways Clients Used an Existing Tracker
- A packaged goods client had just restarted its tracker when one product went viral after a social-media mention. We added measures to identify the incremental lift from the event while continuing to monitor the core brand measures. Executives used the results to assess the financial impact and increased social-media marketing.
- A national restaurant chain planned a slow rollout of a product outside its usual product set. We added a product evaluation to the larger brand survey and timed the waves to match the rollout. Executives could read the launch results alongside the traditional brand metrics as the product reached more locations.
- An online retailer wanted to understand barriers to using its platform and monitor efforts to reduce friction in the purchase journey. Its large B2B tracker continued to report the standard KPIs while documenting the effect of the team’s changes over time.
Five Design Choices
- Define the category around the customer: Look beyond the industry’s category definition to understand which other products or services meet the same need. Map the journey and compare the relevant audience segments.
- Explain why people choose: Identify the main drivers of choice and compare brand performance with customer expectations, competitors, and alternatives.
- Add measures specific to the situation: Keep the core funnel, but include diagnostics that explain the brand’s place in the customer journey.
- Account for changes in the market: Examine how new conditions affect awareness, usage, momentum, category leadership, and the differences among audience segments.
- Adapt without breaking the trend line: Update the surrounding diagnostics as the market changes while maintaining the core measures needed for comparison.