Leading brands with system
Guye Benker has developed a new marketing tool called the BrandEquitizer
Guye Benker has developed a new marketing tool, the BrandEquitizerBy Andreas Panzeri Guye Benker's BrandEquitizer (BE) is a marketing tool that provides the basis for brand strategy as part of the brand management process. The new tool also enables a more efficient design of the client-agency-market research collaboration.
"With the BrandEquitizer, we have developed not just a brand equity study, but a brand management tool," says Christophe Guye about his new tool. It was developed in collaboration with the Link Institute. In simple terms, the BE enables the combination of classic market research with strategic brand management. "It thus ensures a seamless integration of qualitative and quantitative results with a defined, formally standardized output," says the brochure on the new tool.
In contrast to the already well-known Brand Asset Evaluator from Advico Young & Rubicam, which can provide a methodologically different actual analysis of the brand, "the BrandEquitizer analyzes the actual and target situation," explains Guye. The results obtained by Link are "statistically representative and can be justified individually," specifies Stefan Oglesby, Managing Director at Link Research and Consulting. With BrandEquitizer, the empirical data collection combines a qualitative and a quantitative method. In concrete terms, this means that "the important brand dimensions are determined via the qualitative phase".
The BE is standardized in the sense of a preassembly, so that all desired competitor brands can also be examined. In practice, the work with the BE is divided into five steps.
- Concept: First strategic phase with the briefing of the customer.
- Brand Essence Study: First survey phase with consumer attitudes towards the brand and in comparison with other brands.
- Strategic Draft: Second strategic phase in which a brand strategic draft is delivered.
- Brand Strategy Study: Second survey phase with representative statements on target positioning.
- Brand Strategy: Third strategic phase with the development of the brand strategy.
The methods were tested and fine-tuned in an initial application for Tamedia. All titles of the publishing house were examined. The core questions were: How are the titles perceived as brands today? How are they positioned now? What are their strengths? Where is their optimization potential? Where are the competitors? Where can they be positioned promisingly in the future? The most important brand dimensions were analyzed for the brand positioning on the functional level, on the emotional level and on the level of self-expression. With the results, the advertising agency wanted to find answers to the question: What are the central brand values that should be communicated in the future?
For Bettina Hoffmann, Head of Market Research at Tamedia, this is "another exciting dimension in research, because up to now, title positioning has been analyzed primarily in terms of its reach, socio-demographics, psychographics, and reader interests." Hoffmann therefore rates her experience with the BE as very positive. Even though there were no major surprises in the assessment of the individual titles.
The assumed positioning of almost all Tamedia titles was confirmed by the brand study. It is particularly pleasing that the positioning of the Swiss family undertaken with the relaunch has now been "scientifically confirmed.
The BE developers consider the possibility that their new tool can also be used to measure what happens when a new competitor arrives to be particularly exciting. Does anything change in the perception of the SonntagsZeitung brand when an NZZ am Sonntag comes along? Where does the SonntagsZeitung stand in comparison to an assumed positioning of the NZZ am Sonntag?
The basic idea of the BE is to be able to provide a qualitative, sound basis for future brand strategy. Tamedia decided in favor of the BrandEquitizer because, in its opinion, it is the most suitable instrument. Other clients have expressed interest in Guye Benker's new offering. The BE has already been used for the client Campari for Campari Bitter and Cinzano.
Christophe Guye builds on the fact that this marketing tool can be used to make collaboration with existing and also new clients more efficient and targeted. This is because the client, the agency (consulting/creation) and the market research department all start working at the same time and towards a common goal. In addition, for a new client the investment in his brand costs about the same as a conventional competitive presentation with several agencies.
"With the BrandEquitizer, we have developed not just a brand equity study, but a brand management tool," says Christophe Guye about his new tool. It was developed in collaboration with the Link Institute. In simple terms, the BE enables the combination of classic market research with strategic brand management. "It thus ensures a seamless integration of qualitative and quantitative results with a defined, formally standardized output," says the brochure on the new tool.
In contrast to the already well-known Brand Asset Evaluator from Advico Young & Rubicam, which can provide a methodologically different actual analysis of the brand, "the BrandEquitizer analyzes the actual and target situation," explains Guye. The results obtained by Link are "statistically representative and can be justified individually," specifies Stefan Oglesby, Managing Director at Link Research and Consulting. With BrandEquitizer, the empirical data collection combines a qualitative and a quantitative method. In concrete terms, this means that "the important brand dimensions are determined via the qualitative phase".
The BE is standardized in the sense of a preassembly, so that all desired competitor brands can also be examined. In practice, the work with the BE is divided into five steps.
- Concept: First strategic phase with the briefing of the customer.
- Brand Essence Study: First survey phase with consumer attitudes towards the brand and in comparison with other brands.
- Strategic Draft: Second strategic phase in which a brand strategic draft is delivered.
- Brand Strategy Study: Second survey phase with representative statements on target positioning.
- Brand Strategy: Third strategic phase with the development of the brand strategy.
The methods were tested and fine-tuned in an initial application for Tamedia. All titles of the publishing house were examined. The core questions were: How are the titles perceived as brands today? How are they positioned now? What are their strengths? Where is their optimization potential? Where are the competitors? Where can they be positioned promisingly in the future? The most important brand dimensions were analyzed for the brand positioning on the functional level, on the emotional level and on the level of self-expression. With the results, the advertising agency wanted to find answers to the question: What are the central brand values that should be communicated in the future?
For Bettina Hoffmann, Head of Market Research at Tamedia, this is "another exciting dimension in research, because up to now, title positioning has been analyzed primarily in terms of its reach, socio-demographics, psychographics, and reader interests." Hoffmann therefore rates her experience with the BE as very positive. Even though there were no major surprises in the assessment of the individual titles.
The assumed positioning of almost all Tamedia titles was confirmed by the brand study. It is particularly pleasing that the positioning of the Swiss family undertaken with the relaunch has now been "scientifically confirmed.
The BE developers consider the possibility that their new tool can also be used to measure what happens when a new competitor arrives to be particularly exciting. Does anything change in the perception of the SonntagsZeitung brand when an NZZ am Sonntag comes along? Where does the SonntagsZeitung stand in comparison to an assumed positioning of the NZZ am Sonntag?
The basic idea of the BE is to be able to provide a qualitative, sound basis for future brand strategy. Tamedia decided in favor of the BrandEquitizer because, in its opinion, it is the most suitable instrument. Other clients have expressed interest in Guye Benker's new offering. The BE has already been used for the client Campari for Campari Bitter and Cinzano.
Christophe Guye builds on the fact that this marketing tool can be used to make collaboration with existing and also new clients more efficient and targeted. This is because the client, the agency (consulting/creation) and the market research department all start working at the same time and towards a common goal. In addition, for a new client the investment in his brand costs about the same as a conventional competitive presentation with several agencies.
