Linking consumer sentiment to future brand equity

Measurement of consumer sentiment is unique to the Sunday Times Top Brands Survey, coming out on 15 August 2013, providing insights that allow marketers to understand their brand's equity and its relative, possibly short-lived advantage over competitors - the power in the mind vs. power in the market.

Measuring all aspects

"Generally, market surveys focus on usage, delivering a skewed impression of a brand's future market relevance," explains Esme Deken, Times Media's head of marketing intelligence. "In addition to measuring usage, the methodology we employ in this survey measures the concept of relative advantage. We look at how non-users perceive a brand, indicating its inspirational pull relative to other brands in the category."

"The Apple iPhone received very high non-user ratings in the business sample and, over the years, we have seen this translate into usage amongst general consumers, as soon as they can afford it, this aspiration evolves into behaviour. It is vital to understand how emotion can impact on behaviour," concludes Deken.

Reputation

With marketing strategies that traditionally include initiatives to grow earnings and market share, many brands are challenged to differentiate in an increasingly competitive economy. Companies are starting to discover the value that a reputable award adds to brand credibility, particularly when the accolade comes from solidly conducted, multi-dimensional research that reports on more than current product usage.

"Many companies place huge credence on these results and have KPIs (key performance indicators) linked to achieving the top performance. Even when a brand fails to win a category, there is still enormous interest in understanding what factors contributed to losing ground to a competitor's brand," explains Trevor Ormerod, GM, advertising and strategic sales for Times Media.

For more information, go to www.tmadroom.co.za.