The Blueprint for Brand Growth. An evidence-based framework that defines the future of marketing

Analysis of 6.5 billion consumer datapoints reveals the three rules of brand growth

Kantar’s Blueprint for Brand Growth is built on an analysis of 6.5 billion consumer data points, on how people feel and act, collected over the past decade, and reveals the key drivers of brand growth, providing a decision-making framework for marketers to better control the levers of growth that shape their brand future.

The Blueprint is the result of collaboration between Kantar’s experts, industry leaders and advanced analytics work combining Kantar’s unique BrandZ and Worldpanel data assets. All focused on one question ‘How can marketers better drive growth?’. It proves that brands that grow through being meaningfully different to more people, command 5X market penetration today, and have a real advantage in penetration growth over the next two years.*

It’s easier to grow brands when populations are growing, and the economy is healthy. It’s much tougher during times of economic turbulence, as you need to make difficult choices. And marketing needs to be firmly in the driving seat - to grow penetration, profitability, and value.

Commenting on the launch, Ivan Moroke, CEO, South Africa for Kantar says, “The clarity and simplicity (without being simplistic) of Blueprint for Brand Growth belies the rigour, expertise, evidence-based thought leadership, pragmatic application, and step by step road map of brand growth that drives demand-led business growth. Having a defined answer of what makes brands grow is great. Having an assessment, strategic and implementation approach to get to that answer is priceless!”

The growth accelerators

To achieve meaningful difference, the three Growth Accelerators and decision-making frameworks Kantar recommends marketers activate are:

Predispose more people

Creativity, advertising and experience builds meaningful difference as well as mental availability for your brand. When optimally executed, this drives 9X higher volume share, 2X higher average selling price, and a 4X likelihood of growing share in the future.

Be more present

Optimising distribution, customer journey, range, pack, pricing and promotions wins 7X more buyers vs those present in only half of buying occasions.

Find new space

Innovation focused on identifying incremental spaces (motivations, occasions, tangential categories and services) doubles a brand’s chance of growth. Increasing the number of usage occasions by 10% results in revenue growth of +17%.

The Blueprint builds upon and enhances existing industry research on how brands grow. It importantly proves that while market penetration growth is crucial, solely focusing on this is insufficient to holistically drive sustainable brand, revenue and margin growth. Kantar’s analysis underscores the role of differentiation – not just distinctiveness – in forging strong mental connections between consumers and brands as well as defending pricing power.

On introducing Blueprint for Brand Growth, Jane Ostler, Kantar’s EVP of Thought Leadership and Blueprint project lead, commented:

“Our Blueprint for Brand Growth sets a new standard for strategic marketing understanding and excellence. Every marketing leader can use this framework to evaluate their brand’s own competitive positioning and then shape their strategic response and marketing investment priorities.

For the first time anywhere, we have combined a decade of attitudinal brand research with actual shopper behaviour to more holistically understand the tangible impact marketing has on growth. Among other elements, we see that emotional connections in advertising are crucial. When optimised, they build differentiation and predispose consumers toward a brand, boosting sales and loyalty.

Our newly revealed Growth Accelerators will, instinctively, feel familiar to CMOs. They are now, though, underpinned with new quantifiable evidence of their impact on brand and revenue growth. These are universal truths that every brand can use to focus their strategy and secure the budget for their highest impact activities.”

From knowledge into action

We are enormously excited to now be able to share the result of this thinking and analysis with our clients and the wider community. Our Blueprint for Brand Growth sets a new standard for strategic marketing understanding and excellence. Every marketing leader can use it to evaluate their brand’s own competitive positioning and then shape their strategic response and marketing investment priorities. Whatever the challenge, the Blueprint serves as the starting point, and the evidence base for marketers to shape their brand future.

"At Heineken, we've been working with Kantar on the brand guidance system and looking at meaningful differentiation for a number of years now. This has helped us understand exactly how we can drive growth on our brands.” Commented Tony Costella, Global Consumer & Markets Insights Director at Heineken. “A brand like Heineken is at a very different stage in different markets worldwide, so using the Meaningful Different and Salient Framework, we've been able to really get underneath the drivers of meaningful differentiation to understand and connect with certain consumer groups that deliver brand growth across different markets.”

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* Top third vs bottom third

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