An advertisement may persuade a consumer that a particular brand is superior to its competitors, but the consumer may not purchase that brand until they have a need for it. A sales call may create interest in the services of a company, but that interest may not translate into a sale until it is time for contract renewal.

It is for this reason that there are many measures of marketing outcomes that can provide insights into the success of marketing activities. These measures are often referred to as intermediate measures because they represent more immediate outcomes that are potentially related to future financial outcomes. Intermediate measures are important because they can provide feedback about the success of marketing activities in advance of actual sales and revenue generation. Such feedback is helpful, of course, only if there is a link between the intermediate outcome and financial results.

The marketing discipline has developed a rich array of measures and metrics. Whole books have been devoted to cataloging and defining marketing measures. Indeed, one book identifies almost 200 metrics in the context of digital media alone. The Marketing Accountability Standards Board maintains a Common Language Marketing Dictionary that provides standard definitions for many measures of marketing outcomes.

Measures and metrics related to the outcomes of marketing activities take numerous forms depending on both what is measured and how the measure is used. The same “number” may be used differently in distinct contexts, so it is important to know not only how a measure is defined but also how it is being used. For example, product awareness, as measured by a survey of consumers, may be descriptive if it refers to the number or percent of consumers who are currently aware of the product or it may be predictive if it refers to an expected future outcome of an advertising campaign.

It is useful to consider the various ways in which measures and metrics can be conceptualized beginning with the difference between measures and metrics. Some common types of intermediate marketing measures can be found in the list below. The list is by no means exhaustive but does serve to illustrate some of the specific measures and metrics used by marketers. Note that these measures and metrics can often be operationalized in multiple ways.

Common Intermediate Marketing Measures And Metrics

Advertising Wearout: The rate of decline in the effectiveness or selling power of an advertisement after exposure to the target audience

All Commodity Volume: The total annual sales volume of retailers that can be aggregated from individual store-level up to larger geographical sets. This measure is a ratio, and so is typically measured as a percentage (or on a scale from 0 to 100). The total dollar sales that go into ACV include the entire store inventory sales, rather than sales for a specific category of products—hence the term “all commodity volume”

Brand Equity: A measure of the value of a brand often operationalized as the incremental revenue that the brand earns over the revenue it would earn if it were sold without the brand name

Brand Awareness: A measure of familiarity frequently obtained by asking questions such as “have you heard of brand X or “what brands come to mind when you think of ‘luxury cars’? The former question is a recognition measure; the latter question is a recall measure

Brand Preference: The percent of those who are aware of a brand and prefer it over your competitors under the assumption of equality in price and availability

Brand Image: A measure of the perception of a brand in the minds of persons. The brand image is a mirror reflection (though perhaps inaccurate) of the brand personality or product being. It is what people believe about a brand—their thoughts, feelings, expectations

Brand Loyalty: A measure of the degree to which a consumer generally buys the same manufacturer-originated product or service repeatedly over time rather than buying from multiple suppliers within the category. The degree to which a consumer consistently purchases the same brand within a product class

Carryover Effect: A measure of the effect of a marketing action beyond a single time period (i.e., a lagged effect). The rate at which the effects of a marketing action diminishes with the passage of time

Clickthrough: A measure of the number of users who clicked on a specific internet advertisement or link

Customer Lifetime Value: The monetary value of a customer relationship, based on the present value of the projected future cash flows from the customer relationship

Customer Equity: Customer equity is the total combined customer lifetime value (CLV) for all of a company’s customers

Customer Satisfaction: A measure of customers’ perceived satisfaction with their experience of a firm’s offerings. It is generally based on survey data and expressed as a rating. It is measured at an individual level, but it is almost always reported at an aggregate level. Customer satisfaction is generally measured on a five-point scale, ranging from “very dissatisfied” to “very satisfied”

Day-after Recall: A method of testing the performance of an ad or a commercial whereby members of the audience are surveyed one day after their exposure to the ad or commercial in a media vehicle to discover how many of the audience members remember (unaided and aided) encountering that specific ad or commercial

Distribution Coverage: A measure of the availability of products sold through retailers—usually as a percentage of all potential outlets—and reveal a brand’s percentage of market access

Frequency: The average number of exposures received by the portion of the defined population that was “reached” (i.e., received at least one exposure to the advertising or campaign) being assessed during a given time period

Gross Rating Points (GRP): Measures the size of an audience (or total amount of exposures) reached by a specific media vehicle or schedule during a specific period of time. It is expressed in terms of the rating of a specific media vehicle (if only one is being used) or the sum of all the ratings of the vehicles included in a media schedule. It includes any audience duplication and is equal to the reach of a media schedule multiplied by the average frequency of the schedule. Target Rating Points: express the same concept, but with regard to a more narrowly defined target audience

Impression: A measure of how many times an advertisement is viewed. Also called exposures and opportunities-to-see (OTS), all refer to the same metric: an estimate of the audience for a media “insertion” (one ad) or campaign. In an Internet context an impression is a single display of online content to a user’s web-enabled device. Thus, it is the number of times the ad is displayed, whether it is clicked on or not. Theoretically, an impression is generated each time an advertisement is viewed and the number of impressions achieved is a function of an ad’s reach (the number of people seeing it) multiplied by its frequency (number of times they see it). Note that impressions do not account for the quality of the viewings, or even whether the consumer actually “sees” the ad: an opportunity to view the ad, a glimpse or a detailed viewing all count as one impression

Intention: An attitudinal measure of customers’ stated willingness or plan to behave in a certain way. A common operationalization is purchase intention, the stated plan to purchase a specific product or service at some point in the future

Inventory Velocity or Inventory Turnover: A measure of the time period starting with receipt of raw materials or purchased inventory and ending with the sale of the finished goods to the  customer (the period over which a business has ownership of inventory). It is measured by dividing the cost of goods sold by the average inventory on hand

Leads To Closing Ratio: A measure of the number of sales made divided by responses to a given marketing activity

Market Share: The percentage of a market (defined in terms of either units or revenue) accounted for by a specific entity

Media Mentions: Number of product or service mentions or appearances per medium per month and whether those mentions were positive or negative

Price Sensitivity: A measure of the degree to which demand for a given product is affected by a change in its price

Rating Point: A rating point is defined as the reach of a media vehicle as a percentage of a defined population (for example, a television show with a rating of 2 reaches 2% of the population)

Reach: Also called net reach, this measure is the number or percentage of individuals in a defined population who receive at least one exposure to an advertisement. The number of different persons or households exposed to a particular advertising media vehicle or a media schedule during a specified period of time. It is also called cumulative audience, cumulative reach, net audience, net reach, net unduplicated audience, or unduplicated audience. Reach is often presented as a percentage of the total number of persons in a specified audience or target market

Recall (aided and unaided): The percentage of people who remember a given ad or commercial in a survey situation when asked generically and specifically about what they recall

Referrals By Customer/Per Customer: Number of customers willing to refer new customers and number of referrals by each customer

Sales Per Customer: Number of sales made by a given customer in a given time frame

Sales By Channel: Number of sales made through a specific distribution channel in a given time frame

Willingness To Recommend: The percentage of customers who indicate that they would recommend a brand to friends

Definitions are adapted from the Common Language Marketing Dictionary, Marketing Accountability Standards Board. You can go through the list and connect the effects of these intermediate measures and metrics with eventual financial outcomes.

Ad recall, for example, usually predicts a higher likelihood of product selection at the point of sale. Thus, increases in ad recall suggest that revenue will increase. It’s not an exact science. However, knowing nonfinancial measures and metrics and comparing them to earlier periods and to those of competitors can tell you a lot about how your business is doing—or is going to do—in dollars.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: David Stewart, President’s Professor of Marketing and Business Law, Loyola Marymount University, Author, Financial Dimensions Of Marketing Decisions.

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So what does brand mean?

Fact is, we use “brand” to mean many things. Many different things.

So I thought I’d start a glossary of the different meanings of the term brand. Please feel free to add to the list in the comments section below.

1. A brand is a name that a seller uses to label a product in order to communicate with consumers. As in: let’s call this fizzy caramel-colored sugar water Coca-Cola. Once the seller and the buyer agree on common terminology, transactions become a lot easier – for one, consumers can recognize and buy the product they liked the last time – repeat purchases become possible, brand loyalty is born. Which leads us to the second use of the term “brand.”

2. A brand is the reputation that that name builds for itself in the marketplace. As in: Do we have a good brand? A positive reputation is often the reason consumers repurchase, and new customers are attracted to your products. So a lot of effort goes into building that reputation. One of the ways a reputation is built is by offering something other brands don’t or can’t – this brings us to the third meaning of the term “brand.”

3. A brand is your positioning, or the space you occupy in the marketplace — and that includes your competitive differentiation. As in: What is our unique selling proposition? Your points of difference are what makes your products stand out and be chosen on the shelf – but also in the consumers’ minds – which brings us to the fourth meaning of the term.

4. A brand is the set of associations that that name evokes in the customers’ minds: it is the piece of mental real estate you own in the minds of your customers. What comes to mind when consumers think of Fedex? Turns out, many of them think of the film Castaway. But is that what Fedex would like them to think about? That question brings us to the fifth meaning of the term.

5. A brand is your strategy; at the very least, your communication strategy. As in: Are we on brand? Consider a company, such as Johnson and Johnson. Imagine they are considering launching a new product, say a face cream. Should they use their existing brand, which is well known and has a well established positioning, or should they launch a new brand? A key component of the answer to that question is whether the new product is consistent with the meaning and positioning of the J&J brand in consumers’ minds. In this example, the brand sets the boundaries for the strategy of the company – are we on brand is essentially asking are we on strategy? The reason you don’t want to launch a new product that is off brand is because it might harm the brand’s equity. And that brings us to a sixth meaning of the term.

6. A brand is an asset. A brand’s value can be measured, a brand can be bought and sold, as brands often are in mergers and acquisitions. You can make investments in your brand, and you expect a return on that investment.

And that’s not all a brand is. I’m sure you’ll add to the list below.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Niraj Dawar, Author of TILT: Shifting Your Strategy From Products To Customers

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It’s commonplace to talk about having a brand and having a reputation, but in reality of course neither exists as a physical asset – and I suspect that this shared intangibility has fueled the belief that they are one and the same thing. They also share approaches and goals. Both are shaped by communications and both seek to improve perceptions.

For me, a brand functions as a multiplier. It generates desire and differentiation and motivates buyers to pay more for your products than they might otherwise. Reputation is the sum total of your track record. It is the accumulation of your actions and statements to date. So while you build brands in order to get the most return from them, you protect reputation in order to preserve credibility and trust. Brand is proactive. Reputation is defensive. Both are important. Each can be damaged – and the fallout will affect both. As Warren Buffett once observed about reputation: “A great reputation is like virginity – ‘it can be preserved but it can’t be restored.”  

This insightful Sloan Review article makes another succinct comparison: “brand is a “customer-centric” concept … Reputation is a “company-centric” concept … brand is about relevancy and differentiation … and reputation is about legitimacy”. Nicely put.

Ideally in my view you build a brand and a business on the back of a strong reputation, and you use the credibility and consistency of your reputation to attract the people, the investors, the leaders, the media interest and the stakeholder support needed to resource the organization and its brand(s).

Overlaps complicate this relatively straight-forward arrangement: brands are increasingly judged on their back office – on the ways they do business and on the supply chains they use, on the leaders they attract and on who they are associated with – and our awareness (another shared idea between brand and reputation) of brand and organizational actions has been exponentially heightened by social media to the point where they are often fused. The brand is what the organization is.

But the dangers of focusing on one at the expense of, or in place of, the other are captured perfectly in the Sloan Review article: “Focusing on reputation at the expense of brand can lead to product offerings that languish in the market. On the other hand, concentrating on brand and neglecting reputation can be equally dangerous, resulting in a lower stock price, difficulties in attracting top talent and even product boycotts … A strong brand does not necessarily equate with a good reputation. On the other hand, a solid reputation does not always result in a strong brand.”

So you can have market presence and awareness without necessarily being liked or trusted. And you can be liked and trusted by those who know you, but remain largely unknown beyond that restricted circle. In both cases, the brand is under-powered and this will affect its ability to contribute as meaningfully and significantly as it should to profitability and business growth.

Which leads back to where this piece started. I suspect that many senior managers focus on reputation because it impacts directly on how people talk about the organizations they run, so it is something that matters to them professionally. No-one wants to have worked at a tainted organization. But because they do not perceive brands as part of their day to day responsibilities, brand can be seen as something that is narrowly defined and part of operations.

Marketers need to fundamentally shift the viewpoint of senior colleagues away from the belief that brand is an impression that outsiders have of the organization and towards one where brand is seen as a direct expression of strategy and growth plans.

Brand needs to be seen as something all leaders have responsibility for because it is something they drive together. Reputation on the other end needs to be positioned not as “marketing” (how people talk about us) but much more accurately as acknowledgement, in the sense of what the organization is known and respected for.

For that to happen, marketing and corporate communications teams (and their respective agencies) need to spend less time squabbling over mandate and more time integrating their strategies and working to educate senior managers on their joint and collective worth as disciplined teams.

This doesn’t have to be complicated. Because changes in brand and reputation are often highly correlated (60 – 90%), Hill + Knowlton advocate a four-step process:

1.    Identify key attributes for brands

2.    Identify key attributes for reputation

3.    Identify key stakeholders

4.    Survey stakeholders regularly and monitor differences in attribute ratings over time to pinpoint potential threats to brand and reputation

To which I would add a final and crucial step:

5.    Tease out correlations to show how reputation is impacting brand, how brand is enhancing reputation, and the effect of both on growth patterns. “When stakeholders say this … this is how it affects our brands … and as a result this is what happens in the business …”

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1. Personal brand – Otherwise known as individual brand. The brand a person builds around themselves, normally to enhance their career opportunities. Often associated with how people portray and market themselves via media. The jury’s out on whether this should be called a form of brand because whilst it may be a way to add value, it often lacks a business model to commercialize the strategy.

2. Product brand – Elevating the perceptions of commodities/goods so that they are associated with ideas and emotions that exceed functional capability. Consumer packaged goods brands (CPG), otherwise known as fast moving consumer goods brands (FMCG), are a specific application.

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3. Service brand – Similar to product brands, but involves adding perceived value to services. More difficult in some ways than developing a product brand, because the offering itself is less tangible. Useful in areas like professional services. Enables marketers to avoid competing skill vs skill (which is hard to prove and often devolves to a price argument) by associating their brand with emotions. New online models, such as subscription brands, where people pay small amounts for ongoing access to products/services, are rapidly changing the loyalty and technology expectations for both product and service brands – for example, increasingly products come with apps that are integral to the experience and the perceived value.

4. Corporate brand – Otherwise known as the organizational brand. David Aaker puts it very well: “The corporate brand defines the firm that will deliver and stand behind the offering that the customer will buy and use.” The reassurance that provides for customers comes from the fact that “a corporate brand will potentially have a rich heritage, assets and capabilities, people, values and priorities, a local or global frame of reference, citizenship programs, and a performance record”.

5. Investor brand – Normally applied to publicly listed brands and to the investor relations function. Positions the listed entity as an investment and as a performance stock, blending financials and strategy with aspects such as value proposition, purpose and,  increasingly, wider reputation via CSR. As Mike Tisdall will tell you, done well, a strong investor brand delivers share price resilience and an informed understanding of value.

6. NGO (Non Governmental Organization) or Non Profit brand – An area of transition, as the sector shifts gear looking for value models beyond just fundraising to drive social missions. Not accepted by some in the non profit community because it’s seen as selling out. Necessary in my view because of the sheer volume of competition for the philanthropic dollar.

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7. Public brand – Otherwise known as government branding. Contentious. Many, including myself, would argue that you can’t brand something that doesn’t have consumer choice and a competitive model attached to it. That’s not to say that you can’t use the disciplines and methodologies of brand strategy to add to stakeholders’ understanding and trust of government entities. That’s why I talk about the need for public entities to develop trustmarks rather than brands. Jill Caldwell takes this idea of how we consider and discuss infrastructure further and says we now have private-sector brands that are so much a part of our lives that we assume their presence in much the same way as we assume public services. Caldwell refers to brands like Google and Facebook as “embedded brands”.

8. Activist brand – Also known as a purpose brand. The brand is synonymous with a cause or purpose to the point where that alignment defines its distinctiveness in the minds of consumers. Classic examples: Body Shop, which has been heavily defined by its  anti-animal-cruelty stance; and Benetton, which confronts bigotry and global issues with a vehemence that has made it both hated and admired.

9. Place brand – Also known as destination or city brands. This is the brand that a region or city builds around itself in order to associate its location with ideas rather than facilities. Often used to attract tourists, investors, businesses and residents. Recognizes that these groups all have significant choices as to where they choose to locate. A critical success factor is getting both citizens and service providers on board, since they in effect become responsible for the experiences delivered. Most famous example is probably  “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”. Other place brand examples here.

10. Nation brand – Whereas place brands are about specific areas, nation brands relate, as per their name, to the perceptions and reputations of countries. Simon Anholt is a pioneer in this area. Some good models comparing nation and place branding here.

11. Ethical brand – Used in two ways. The first is as a description of how brands work, specifically the practices they use and the commitments they demonstrate in areas such as worker safety, CSR and more – i.e. a brand is ethical or it is not?. Secondly, denotes the quality marques that consumers look for in terms of reassurance that the brands they choose are responsible. Perhaps the most successful and well known example of such a brand is Fairtrade. These types of ethical brands are often run by NGOs – e.g. WWF’s Global Forest and Trade Network.

12. Celebrity brand – How the famous commercialize their high profile using combinations of social media delivered content, appearances, products and gossip/notoriety to retain interest and followers. The business model for this has evolved from appearances in ads and now takes a range of forms: licensing; endorsements; brand ambassador roles; and increasingly brand association through placement (think red carpet).

13. Ingredient brand – The component brand that adds to the value of another brand because of what it brings. Well known examples include Intel, Gore-Tex and Teflon. Compared with OEM offerings in manufacturing, where componentry is white label and simply forms part of the supply chain, ingredient brands are the featured elements that add to the overall value proposition. A key reason for this is that they market themselves to consumers as elements to look for and consider when purchasing. Jason Cieslak wonders though whether the days of the ingredient brand are drawing to a close. His reasons? Increased fragmentation in the manufacturing sector, lack of space as devices shrink, stronger need for integration and lack of interest amongst consumers in what goes into what they buy.

14. Global brand – The behemoths. These brands are easily recognized and widely dispersed. They epitomize “household names”. Their business model is based on familiarity, availability and stability – although the consistency that once characterized their offerings, and ruled their operating models, is increasingly under threat as they find themselves making changes, subtle and otherwise, to meet the cultural tastes and expectations of people in different regions.

15. Challenger brand – The change makers, the brands that are determined to upset the dominant player. While these brands tend to face off against the incumbents and to do so in specific markets, “Being a challenger is not about a state of market; being number two or three or four doesn’t in itself make you a challenger,” says Adam Morgan of Eat Big Fish. “ … It is a brand, and a group of people behind that brand, whose business ambitions exceed its conventional marketing resources, and needs to change the category decision making criteria in its favor to close the implications of that gap.”

16. Generic brand – The brand you become when you lose distinctiveness. Takes three forms. The first is specific to healthcare and alludes to those brands that have fallen out of patent protection and now face competition from a raft of same-ingredient imitators known as generics. The second form of generic brand is the brand where the name has become ubiquitous and in so doing has passed into common language as a verb – Google, Xerox, Sellotape. The third form is the unbranded, unlabelled product that has a functional description for a name but no brand value at all. This last form is the ultimate in commoditization.

17. Luxury brand – Prestige brands that deliver social status and endorsement to the consumer. Luxury brands must negotiate the fine line between exclusivity and reality. They do this through quality, association and story. These brands have perfected the delivery of image and aspiration to their markets, yet they remain vulnerable to shifts in perception and consumer confidence and they are under increasing pressure from “affordable luxury” brands. Coach for example struggled with revenues in 2014 because of declining sales growth in China and Japan, two of the world’s key luxury markets.

18. Cult brand – The brands that revolve around communities of fierce advocates. Like the challenger brands, these brands often pick fights with “enemies” that can range from other companies to ideas, but pure-play cult brands take their cues from their own passions and obsessions rather than the market or their rivals. They tend to have followers rather than customers, set the rules and ask people to comply and, if they market at all, do so in ways where people come to them rather than the other way around.

19. Clean slate brand – The pop-ups of brand. Fast moving, unproven, even unknown brands that don’t rely on the heritage and history that are so much a part of mainstream brand strategy. These brands feed consumers’ wish for the new and the timely. Read more about them here.

20. Private brand – Otherwise known as private label. Traditionally, these are value-based, OEM-sourced retail offerings that seek to under-cut the asking price of name brands. They focus on price. There is significant potential though in my view for these brands to become more valuable and to play a more significant role at the ‘affordable premium’ end of the market. For that to happen, private brands will need to broaden their appeal and loyalty through a wider range of consideration factors.

21. Employer brand – The ability of a company to attract high quality staff in much-touted competitive markets. Often tied to an Employee Value Proposition. Focuses on the recruiting process though it is sometimes expanded to include the development of a healthy and productive culture. Sadly, given the process obsession of too many HR staff and the lack of interest from a lot of marketing people to venture into people-issues, this tends to be a brand in name rather than a brand by nature. Great potential – but, given the very low satisfaction rates across corporate cultures globally, a  lot more work is needed to realize the full potential of this idea.

It’s no wonder, on review, that so many people outside marketing struggle to understand what a brand is. And we haven’t even talked about brand in reference to structure (brand architecture models such as endorsed brands, house of brands and power brands) or the different types of brand audiences (B2B, B2C, B2T, B2G, H2H).

A brand can of course function across a number of these roles simultaneously – a product brand can be a challenger brand or a global brand, for example. That in itself is an important reminder that we often encounter the same brand in different ways in different contexts – and the criteria for whether a brand is successful or not can shift markedly depending on which categorization is being applied.

The challenge for marketers given these dissipated meanings of brand is to somehow ensure that the emotions that a brand generates are valuable, relevant and differentiated in each context in which it is judged while, at the same time, aligning with the brand strategy overall. I don’t see much evidence of that yet.

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Dan’s smart observation is that “Brand is everything, and everything is brand.” By that he means that all the things a business does — not just its logo and visuals, but also its strategy, call to action, customer service, communications with customers, and people — combine to determine what it stands for. Thus he concludes, “Ultimately, brand is about caring about your business at every level and in every detail, from the big things like mission and vision, to your people, your customers and every interaction anyone is ever going to have with you, no matter how small.” To Dan, a brand is essentially a performance promise incarnate.

But I would add that there is more to “everything” than this would imply, and it’s what determines how much a brand is actually worth. If a brand is shaped by everything its owner does, it is also shaped by everything else associated with the brand in the minds of its customers.

If you think about why brands are important to marketers, the answer is simple: in a competitive context, a brand marks an offering’s differentiation from alternatives. It is what drives customers’ predisposition to buy an offering and pay a premium for it. To Dan’s point, differentiation is most meaningful when it is intrinsic; that is, based on relevant, tangible, and positive performance that can be experienced through the senses. Intrinsic differentiation can come through in the look, feel, sound, smell, or taste of a product. A case in point would be Red Bull, a brand that promises to “give you wings.” Whatever the effect of ingredients like taurine, any tired mind or body will receive a boost from the extra sugar and caffeine the brand contains. Similarly, Dyson became a successful global brand because its vacuum technology was demonstrably better than existing brands of vacuum cleaner.

However, meaningful differentiation can also be extrinsic; that is, not based on the attributes and ingredients of the product or even of its provision. Distinctive communication, provenance, a track record of innovation or, increasingly, social and environmental responsibility can all form the basis of a brand’s perceived, positive edge. The success of Johnnie Walker in the last decade was driven by the association it established with a changing ethos in its customers. Its “Keep on Walking” message tapped into an emerging sense that success was marked not by status for its own sake but by continued personal development. Part of the triumph of this branding was in the adaptation of its execution for local cultures around the world.

A brand is the ideas, the memories, and the feelings evoked every time someone thinks of the brand. When those mental associations make the associated product or service more salient, more interesting, or more compelling than the alternatives, they create value.

So Dan is right, “everything is brand.” And everything a brand does should be aligned to deliver a meaningful experience. But the sensory experience of transacting business with a brand, while it may be the cornerstone of the brand experience, is far from the totality. Brand experience encompasses everything from the first impression of a brand to the latest interaction with it, from a positive association with it created by its funny TV ad to a negative one from a neighbor’s discussion of its shortcomings. It is the job of marketing to shape expectations, frame experiences, and keep as many associations as possible both positive and salient. If they do their work well, the result will be the creation of value for both brand owner and brand buyer.

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