Rethinking the Brand Tracker: How to Revive Your Brand Tracker and Turn it into a Forward-Oriented Brand Navigator

Traditional brand tracking is dead. Over. Done. The world has changed since the development of this market research technique: the development of the internet as a form of advertising and the successive leaps taken by market researchers in expanding professional techniques rendered traditional brand trackers mostly obsolete. Companies can’t afford to wait for their quarterly brand tracking report to analyze their brand status, especially when their competitors are constantly changing the landscape of the market with new ads or services.

What’s more, traditional brand trackers can only attempt to understand any sort of emotional response from survey respondents; this negative attribute of traditional brand trackers makes it hard for companies to create differentiation for themselves based off of these surveys.

Might there still be a way to resurrect brand tracking methodology, adapted to modern needs? Earlier this year, our superhero troupe of skilled research analysts and experienced academics decided to put their heads together to evolve a brand tracking service better suited for today’s dynamic markets. In this webinar recording, Protobrand CEO Anders Bengtsson and consumer insight specialist Jill Orum present our sleek new twist on brand tracking: emotion-based brand tracking using our proprietary research instrument, Meta4 Insight.

Protobrand’s brand tracker uses Meta4 Insight visual exercises in combination with traditional cognitive questions and response latency tests to enrich quantitative data with strong emotional responses. Focusing on ketchup giants Heinz and Hunt’s, we found that traditional cognitive questions revealed only a very basic view of the market: while both brands are incredibly well-known, Heinz controls a mammoth proportion of market share with little to no differentiation at the attribute level.

How can a company like Hunt’s, with little marking differentiation from its largest competitor, leverage a traditional brand tracker? All it would discover is the pre-existing lack of differentiation, something it likely already knew. There is no roadmap, no path to success embedded in these brand trackers. There are simply blank statistics. Watch our webinar recording to see our results!

You will learn:

• What brand trackers need to survive in the 21st century
• How to find differentiation in crowded markets
• How visual metaphor research taps into consumer emotion
• How using emotional data can provide a more complete view of your consumer base

ANDERS BENGTSSON

CEO
Protobrand (United States)

Anders holds a Ph.D. in Consumer Culture Theory, and is an expert in projective research techniques and interpretive analysis. At Protobrand, he helps clients translating business problems into research designs that yield actionable insights. Prior to joining Protobrand, Anders was a professor of marketing and has written extensively on how brands become agents of consumer culture. His work has been published in numerous journals including Journal of Macromarketing, International Marketing Review, and the Journal of Product and Brand Management. Anders received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Marketing from Lund University in Sweden.

JILL ORUM

Insights Specialist & Storyteller
Protobrand (United States)

Jill Orum has over 20 years of experience in Insights and Marketing Strategy roles, including both client side and consulting roles focused on brand and marketing strategy, positioning, portfolio management and innovation. Prior to working with Protobrand, Jill was a Partner and Head of Insights at Prophet, where she helped develop impactful insights for companies such as Mondelez, Hershey’s, and Target. Jill’s earlier client side experience includes a role as Senior Director of Consumer Insights & Strategy for PepsiCo’s Global Nutrition Group, and 17 years at Kraft Foods, Inc., in Consumer Insights roles of increasing responsibility. Jill holds an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, and a BBA from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.