Figure 19. When does an online ad get noticed?
As mentioned in Chapter 1, brands are the carriers of customer relevance. A brand need not necessarily be a registered name with a logo. Even a trade name, a family name or even the name of a region can be seen as a brand. Consumers group products and services under such a brand name and attribute value to it. Customer relevance is therefore measured per brand.
Portfolio management
Distribution and communications
Relevance is also one of the four pillars under the Brand Asset Valuator of Young & Rubicam 18. Various researchers have – partly on basis of this model – studied how the different components of brand value relate to a company ' s financial results. All studies emphasise the predictive value of relevance and brand stature for financial results.
These studies always measure relevance on a relative scale. This means that one brand is compared to
Fulfillment of your brand promise several other brands, and is found to be, say, more powerful than 30 % of those brands, and less powerful than 70 % of the other brands. Research by Frank Verbeeten and Pieter Vijn among 70 brands has shown that there is a statistical relationship between brand power and that brand ' s profitability 19. For every 10 % of brands that you leave trailing, your increases by around 0.2 %.
A brand is relevant if the fulfilment of its promise connects to actual customer need. This will happen if their actual need is answered by the promise that your brand makes, and how this is fulfilled in products, services, distribution or your marketing communications( Figure 20). Customer relevance always starts with a clear brand promise.
Customer relevance
Actual customer needs
Generic needs
Context / Situation
Figure 20. Customer relevance increases to the extent that brand promise and actual customer needs overlap
Every person has a number of generic needs: security, friendship, relaxation, efficiency and success. Depending on the context or situation you are in, these generic needs are translated into actual needs. Again depending on the situation, one or more of these generic needs will be dominant, complemented by needs that arise through a customer ' s expectations with respect to a certain
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