Definition
One of the indicators of the strength of a brand in the hearts and minds of customers, brand preference or brand choice (BP/C) represents which branded product is preferred under specified conditions of price and availability. [1]
Purpose
Measures of brand preference attempt to quantify the impact of marketing activities in the hearts and minds of customers and potential customers. Higher brand preference usually indicates more revenues (sales) and profit, also making it an indicator of company financial performance.
Brand preference is used in many marketing applications including copy testing, brand lift and brand valuation.
Brand preference is the highest order ROO metric for sponsorship is due to its high correlation with market share and price premiums. [2]
Construction
There are at least three classes of methodologies to measure brand preference:
- Brand choice measures – veiled choice of preferred brand from a competitive set of brands
- Survey questions – unveiled self-report of preferred brand
- Constant sum measures – planned purchases among a competitive set of brands
MASB Brand Investment and Valuation Project
In 2016, MASB released results from an eighteen-month study of brand preferences [3] of 7,200 consumers for 120 brands from 12 diverse categories. It found that brand preference, provided by MSW Research, provided the greatest relationship to market share across all other marketing metrics examined and that it captured the explanatory power of these other metrics.
After this, the MSW Research Brand Preference metric was certified as meeting the 10 Characteristics of an Ideal Metric through the MASB Marketing Metric Audit Protocol and deemed an exemplar metric. [3]
References
- Common Language in Marketing Project, 2020.
- Sponsorship Accountability Part 5: Measurement; Marketing Accountability Standards Board, Dec. 2019.
-
Brand Investment and Valuation: A New, Empirically-based Approach, Frank Findley; Marketing Accountability Standards Board, 2016.
- Marketing Accountability Standards Board, Marketing Metric Certification Catalog, 2019.