A brand index is something which ranks all the brands within a particular category. These categories can be anything such as beauty products, health and well-being brands, alcoholic drinks, snack brands, etc. The rankings really depend on where you go to see brand indexes as there are many different types due to different metrics being used. In short, if these metrics change, then brand indexes may shift. In this article, we’re going to look at a few examples of what these metrics can be, and what can cause them to change.
The first metric we’re going to look at is net promoter score. This score reveals how likely it is that a consumer will recommend a brand or product to friends and family. Word of mouth promotion can be very hard to calculate, so this can be a very useful guide of how likely a brand will be recommended. Something such as negative press coverage, or perhaps a new substitute product offering something different can cause net promoter score to drop. While something such as good quality or value for money can be very strong motivators for a consumer to naturally promote a brand.
Secondly, there’s purchase intent. In short, this makes consumers put their money where their mouth is, as you gage whether consumers will buy from a particular brand again in the future. Different factors can cause this to flourish compared to net promoter score. For example, larger changes to the economy can mean that consumers might be less willing to buy from specific branded goods over cheaper alternatives. Or if consumers feel quality has dropped, they will be less keen to purchase a brand in the future.
A completely different metric that is often used in brand indexes is unprompted brand recall. To calculate this, you give consumers a certain category, then you ask them to name as many brands as they can that they associate with that product. This is where the bigger players of a specific market will come to the forefront. What this metric tells you is how visible a brand is on a large scale. For example, if there is an increase in marketing output for a brand, the company would hope for their unprompted brand recall score to rise. Recommendations on a national scale, such as from Which, and other sources of ranking authority can help the score go up too.
