BRAND FITNESS

Does your brand truly describe who you are and what you have to offer?

Every company or organisation has a brand. Your brand is the collective identity of everything you do, everything you believe in and everything you strive for. Ultimately, your brand makes a promise to your customers — a pledge of the benefits they will receive when using your company or brand.

Customers choose to be associated with a specific brand or company because it implicitly defines who they are. It shapes their identity. Since brands and partner-companies become an extension of who you are, they are selected with a lot of care.

Now, ask yourself these questions:

• Does our brand clearly reflect who we are and what we offer?
• How do we ensure that we deliver on the implicit promise entrenched in our brand?
• Is our brand and company client-centric — focusing on the needs of customers?
• How can we strengthen and position our brand in the marketplace to become a leader in our field?

Consulta Research offers a branding solution through market research that addresses all the above questions. Our integrated Brand Fitness Model, developed in-house over the past 10 years, transcends traditional brand equity appraisals. It allows you to manage your brand as an asset through an in-depth understanding of how customers, stakeholders and prospective clients view your brand.



Our model incorporates brand attributes as viewed by customers, the benefits they receive from the brand and the values associated with the brand. These three components can be observed from a functional or symbolic perspective, with varying degrees of importance and differentiation. By measuring these aspects, we are able to establish whether customers are loyal to your brand, or if they are potentially “convertible” to other brands.

Conversely, the model also performs a Persistency Analysis — measuring the degree to which customers who associate themselves with other brands are loyal to those specific brands, or if they can be converted to your brand. All this information empowers you to leverage your brand and to strengthen your brand identity in the marketplace.

Brand segmentation and brand appeal

Current and potential customers can be segmented according to various demographic characteristics or other variables. Your brand will have a greater appeal in certain segments than in other segments and knowing this enables you either to focus on a specific segment and strengthen your brand appeal in that segment, or to change your brand positioning and target other market segments.



Brand positioning

Identifying where your brand is positioned in the market is one of the first steps towards entrenching your brand just where you want it in the minds of your customers. Positioning starts with understanding customers’ perceptions of your brand, followed by creating the desired perception and then entrenching your brand among your target market.

Brand positioning plays a pivotal role in establishing/supporting the brand attributes that create a favourable perception among target markets — and therefore a behavioural preference for your particular brand.



Consulta Research harnesses correspondence analysis to create a two-dimensional view that clearly displays where your brand is positioned in relation to other brands in the marketplace. This approach also identifies your brand’s strengths and weaknesses.