Distinctive Brand Assets
Research & Measurement
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 brandâs assets.
Unravelâs 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 assetâs performance combined on fame and uniqueness, you learn the most fruitful course of action for your brand to grow further. For more info, see âHow it worksâ.
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 â which dramatically increases its presence in the consideration set. More specifically, owning powerful brand assets helps to:
A brand asset is anything that can trigger the brand in consumer memory. The most widely used brand assets in marketing are logoâs and symbols (Nikeâs swoosh), slogans (McDonaldâs âIâm lovinâ itâ), packaging shape (Coca Colaâs bottle), color (Cadburyâs purple), music, sounds and jingles (Kit Katâs âGive me a Breakâ), advertising execution (Mastercardâs recurring priceless campaign), characters (Ferreroâs Kinder boy) and celebrities (Gilletteâs many atheleteâs endorsements).
Unravelâs Brand Asset Monitor uses evidence based consumer research methods to determine the respective Fame and Uniqueness of your brandâs assets. The methodology can be reliably conducted through online surveys. Projects can be done swift and affordable.
Doing brand asset research is especially worthwhile when:
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: âIgnore or Testâ, âAvoid Solo Useâ, âInvestment Potentialâ and âUse or Loseâ.
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:
âThe 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.â
Measuring brand assets gives insight into what makes your brand distinctive in the customerâs mind. Different brands have different reasons to monitor brand assets, among others:
Brand asset research measures each assetâs 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 assetsâ 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.
Depending on your research objective, you can measure brand asset strength once or multiple times.
One-time brand asset measurement
Recurring brand asset monitoring
Regular brand asset projects are completed within the same week.
Assets can include: