Distinctive Brand Assets
Research & Measurement

Gain practical insights on which brand assets to maintain, nurture or further develop
Based on Byron Sharp’s leading research from ‘How Brands Grow’
5 days Project Completion

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Applications

The latest research on what makes brands grow reveals that the primary mechanism behind market success is mental availability. Powerful brands have in common that they own a great degree of mindshare in the brain. More people think about them, more often.

Your distinctive brand assets are the engine behind brand growth. Unravel Research helps you measure, monitor and develop your brand’s assets.

Brand Asset Measurement & Monitoring

Unravel’s Brand Asset Monitor periodically monitors the strength of your brand assets on their Fame (% consumers that link the asset to your brand) and Uniqueness (the asset links to your brand, and not competitors).

Based on an asset’s performance combined on fame and uniqueness, you learn the most fruitful course of action for your brand to grow further. For more info, see ‘How it works’.

Consultancy on Brand Asset Development

Distinctive elements do not become assets overnight. Great creative execution and consistent delivery are essential when forging strong asset connections. Unravel can help you to create, develop and nurture powerful distinctive assets. Our leading experts on consumer psychology and neuroscience help you apply the latest scientific insights to get most out of every asset. Brand-attribute association (test versus control group)

How it Works

From Coca Cola’s distinctive bottle shape to Nike’s ‘Just do it’ slogan. From Duracell’s tireless pink Bunny to T-Mobile’s iconic sound jingle. These are all examples of distinctive brand assets. How can we measure these assets objectively – and when should you?

Distinctive Assets are the key to brand growth

Brand assets are a driving force in brand sales. A strong set of assets makes more people think about the brand more often – which dramatically increases its presence in the consideration set. More specifically, owning powerful brand assets helps to:

Reinforce advertising-brand linkage – get more out every ad exposure
Being able to replace brand logo in creative ways
Increase in-store attention, consideration, and therefore sales

Types of brand assets

A brand asset is anything that can trigger the brand in consumer memory. The most widely used brand assets in marketing are logo’s and symbols (Nike’s swoosh), slogans (McDonald’s “I’m lovin’ it”), packaging shape (Coca Cola’s bottle), color (Cadbury’s purple), music, sounds and jingles (Kit Kat’s ‘Give me a Break’), advertising execution (Mastercard’s recurring priceless campaign), characters (Ferrero’s Kinder boy) and celebrities (Gillette’s many athelete’s endorsements).

Brand Asset measurement

Unravel’s Brand Asset Monitor uses evidence based consumer research methods to determine the respective Fame and Uniqueness of your brand’s assets. The methodology can be reliably conducted through online surveys. Projects can be done swift and affordable.

When to do brand asset research?

Doing brand asset research is especially worthwhile when:

You're redesigning brand identity. The data shows you what to change and what to keep.
Your brand awareness is sub-optimal. You want to learn where the problem lies and how to fix it.
You're considering new brand identity elements and want to assess their potential value.

Gain Practical Insights

The results of a brand asset test are highly practical and give immediate strategic direction. Based on their performance on Fame and Uniqueness, each asset is categorized in one of four quadrants with a specific recommendation on how to go forward: ‘Ignore or Test’, ‘Avoid Solo Use’, ‘Investment Potential’ and ‘Use or Lose’.

Project Timeline

Unravel Research has extensively optimized and automated data collection and analysis. This allows us to offer unparalleled 5-day project lead times for brand asset research in the market.

Day 1: Kick-off

During the kick-off audit, we list all the brand assets that should be included in the study. This can include current assets, new assets or former assets that are under consideration for reintroduction.
Day 2-4: Fieldwork

Respondent recruitment and data collection. We recommend 200 respondents for each cell.
Day 5: Data Analysis & Report

We analyze each asset’s performance on fame and uniqueness. The insights will be clearly presented in the final report, including actionable recommendations on how to go forward.

Extra Research Modules

Our brand asset test runs directly in Qualtrics and can be integrated with other research modules, either offered by Unravel or your own. Brand Asset measurement is often combined with the following modules:

Top of mind (category ownership)
Brand preference (conscious and subconscious)
Brand health tracking

“The Neuro Research proved to be very valuable to us. We made a deliberate choice for neuromarketing research. We don't want socially accepted answers, we want real insights.”
Ingrid de Jong - Brand Manager Pearle

Example Output

Below, find some example output of Brand Asset Measurement: Overview in the distinctive brand asset grid, in-depth asset analysis and development over time.

View page

Facts

> 1400

Assets tested

5

Day Lead Time

9

Years of Experience

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the purpose of measuring brand assets?

Measuring brand assets gives insight into what makes your brand distinctive in the customer’s mind. Different brands have different reasons to monitor brand assets, among others:

Tracking campaign effects on important assets
Learning which assets are most important for brand recognizability
Learning which assets will benefit from broader usage or greater repetition
Learning which assets unintentionally trigger competitor brands
Testing new assets for the potential to enhance brand equity

Which metrics are measured in brand asset research? Are they validated?

Brand asset research measures each asset’s respective score on Fame and Uniqueness.

Fame is the proportion of people who link your brand to the asset.

Uniqueness is the proportion of responses your brand gets relative to competitors.

Together, Fame and Uniqueness provide strategic guidance on how to move forward with each asset. It points to which course of action will enable the asset to achieve its highest potential for the brand: use it as is, invest in its exposure, make the asset more distinctive or discard it.

The importance of mental availability has been empirically established by Byron Sharp and described in his book How Brands Grow (Sharp, 2016). Mental availability increases the likelihood of the consumer noticing, recognizing and thinking of your brand in a buying situation. Your brand assets’ Fame and Uniqueness are the building blocks of mental availability.

Development of the methodology:

Romaniuk, J., & Nenycz-Thiel, M. (2014). Measuring the Strength Of Color Brand-Name Links: The Comparative Efficacy Of Measurement Approaches. Journal of Advertising Research, 54(3), 313-319.

The importance of mental availability:

Sharp, B. (2016). How brands grow. Oxford University Press.

How often should I measure brand assets?

Depending on your research objective, you can measure brand asset strength once or multiple times.

One-time brand asset measurement

You want to change brand identity and want to learn which assets should stay the same
You are about to introduce new assets and want to test which ones will be most beneficial to your brand (i.e., have least competitive interference)
You want to gain deeper insight on which assets are capable of effectively replacing the logo in creative ways, without hurting brand recognition
Brand awareness doesn’t meet your expectations and you want to uncover the underlying weaknesses

Recurring brand asset monitoring

You want to objectively measure campaign effects on brand asset strength
You want to monitor your brand’s current standing within a competitive market in order to detect opportunities and pitfalls early on

What is the typical project lead time for brand asset research?

Regular brand asset projects are completed within the same week.

What types of brand assets can be measured?

Assets can include:

logo’s
symbols
slogans
packaging shape
color
music, sounds and jingles
advertising execution
characters and celebrities

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Distinctive Brand Assets
Research & Measurement