8 Steps to Successful Brand Reputation Measurement

HARD TOMEASURE 1Hard to Measure - Roundtable Discussion 23 November 2012

Steps To Successful Reputation Measurement

Report Following Roundtable Hard to Measure Event23 November 2012

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HARD TOMEASURE 3Hard to Measure - Roundtable Discussion 23 November 20122 Hard to Measure - Roundtable Discussion 23 November 2012

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Brand Reputation Schematic

Impact on Reputation

HARD TO MEASURE ROUNDTABLE, NOVEMBER 2012

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HRREPUTATION

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alues/Culture Reputation Identity

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In 1290 AD, the Mapa Mundi was created, a large vellum map of the world. It currently hangs in Hertford Cathedral. This was an extraordinary document, part history, part theology, part guesswork, partly factual. It was created at a time of flux, when Europe was struggling through the ‘dark ages’ and the view of the wider world was little known, but more and more important. By its very creation it shaped the view of the world, and expanded people’s views of what was possible.

In a similar (but historically much less significant) way, we are trying to map the hard to measure landscape of brands and their relationship with customers, to provoke debate, develop tools, and provide insights into a business world which is also in

flux, and the understanding of which is being fought over by different groups.

Whatever industry you operate within, and whatever your market, brand reputation has an impact on your company’s effectiveness – and yet few companies track and manage this in a comprehensive way in the same way as, say, stock levels, pricing strategy or R&D. If

we can ‘map’ the priorities and problems when understanding reputation, we can find powerful ways to measure, track and manage performance.

This document summarises the discussions and our findings from the first ‘Hard to Measure’ roundtable, on 23 November 2012. The next event will be covering ‘Customer Centricity’ on 18 January 2013, and will continue next year with workshops and seminars planned.

We hope you find this document interesting and useful. If you would be interested in coming to a future event, please let us know at [email protected].

James Bridgman and Karen Topp, 17 December 2012.

IntroductionA common problem, but no common solutions

What is ‘Hard to Measure’?

Hard to Measure is an ongoing investigation into best practice, insights and tools to deal with the ‘intangibles’ of business performance.

We set up the initiative after realising that our clients faced similar challenges, despite coming at business projects from very different perspectives.

Karen Topp is a performance management and management

information expert, who specialises in the alignment of performance indicators to business strategy. She helps directors understand how far they are from their division’s objectives, and what to do about it.

James Bridgman is a branding consultant and Creative Director of

Silverleaf, a creative agency specialising in helping fast growth startups, SMEs and corporates develop and deliver compelling brands. With over 16 years experience working with every type of company, James focusses on creativity as a method to meet and develop business objectives.

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The Event The Event

Karen Topp James Bridgman

uk.linkedin.com/in/karentopp uk.linkedin.com/in/jamesbridgman

Karen Topp Consulting

Performance Management Consultant

Brand Consultant

Creative Director Silverleaf

Surinder HundalOwner | Director at Rippleseed

Previously head of Brand Engagement at Nokia, Int. Business Leaders Forum

View Linkedin profile: uk.linkedin.com/in/surinderhundal

Arno CastanetProduct Management & Development at MNI - Deutsche Börse Group

Previously at Fitch Solutions, Dow Jones

View Linkedin profile: uk.linkedin.com/pub/arno-castanet/1/76b/760

Madlen Nicolaus

Julie Strawson

Senior Marketing & Community Manager EMEA at Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Previously social media manager at Kodak and account supervisor at Ketchum PR

View Linkedin profile: uk.linkedin.com/in/madlennicolaus/en

Director of Marketing - Monotype Imaging, Founding Partner, Brand Perfect Tour

Previously Marketing Network Consultants Ltd, Lernout and Hauspie Speech Products

View Linkedin profile: uk.linkedin.com/in/juliestrawson

Jeremy WaiteHead of Social Strategy EMEA at Adobe

Previously head of TBG Digital, Phones4u

View Linkedin profile: uk.linkedin.com/in/jeremypaulwaite

Ben ClaxtonFounder at nativeye

Previously Director of Consent and Head of Strategy of Panlogic

View Linkedin profile: uk.linkedin.com/in/benclaxton

@rippleseed

@jeremywaite

@benclaxton

@nonofromlondon

@madleeeen

@connectricity

Facilitated by...

Attended by... Location and Agenda

We had a great line up of expert participants who came to Adam Street on 23rd November to contribute to the debate and discuss issues from different perspectives. We would like to thank everyone for attending and contributing – it would not have been so successful without all of you there.

Our objective was to create a fairly open debate covering core subject areas that impact brand reputation and businesses’ ability to track, measure, control and understand it. It was also important that the participants could shape the direction of discussion if relevant, as they came from different backgrounds and perspectives.

Adam Street Club, Central London

Start, personal introductions, roundtable introduction

Wrap up

First two topics/areas

Follow up discussion topics (group will determine which)

Final straight — focussing on concrete conclusions

KEY AREAS FOR DISCUSSION:

• Who cares about your brand?

• Does everyone ‘live’ the brand? • Prerequisites for a good reputation and

successful brand

• What is reputation?

• Monitoring and measuring techniques

• External drivers of reputation

• Sources of data, best practice and resources

AGENDA


If the measurement of reputation, and the promotion of related metrics onto the overall board-level scorecard, are to happen, then our very first hurdle is to ensure that the executive management team actually trusts both the metrics themselves, and the people who sponsor their use.

Branding and reputation are business problems — not ‘design’ onesIt is no coincidence that the companies with the strongest brand presence have significant buy-in from the board to put brand at the centre of the discussion – a focus often championed by one strong individual (Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson), which fades when they are no longer there.

The understanding of ‘branding’ is often limited to visual identity and marketing campaigns, which tend to be run by design-led marketing departments.

This makes it hard for those defending a ‘strong brand’ case to be included in the debate over business fundamentals. Placing reputation KPIs on board level scorecards demands the translation of chiefly qualitative data into profitability figures.

Marketers should not be the only ones concerned with reputation, because all layers of the organisation are affected in some way by reputation changes, and all of them can in turn affect the business’s reputation. How much does a positive reputation support the ability to hire talent? How much can it be compromised by one poorly trained customer service agent?

Conflicting metricsIt is also hard to make a case for the use of certain metrics when they deliver vastly different results depending on the parameters used to calculate them. Brand value is an example, with competing metrics differing by billions of pounds when assessing large brands.

How much does a positive reputation

support the ability to hire talent? How much can it be compromised

by one poorly trained customer service agent?

Secure Sponsorship and Buy-inWho cares about reputation, and why?

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Definitions

There are many ways you can define reputation, depending upon your perspective — usually either customer / market focussed (what your ‘audience’ thinks) or what those involved in the business think (what the ‘stakeholders’ think).

1. Reputation is the beliefs or opinions that are generally held about someone or somethingOxford English Dictionary

2. An organisation enjoys a good reputation when it consistently meets or exceeds the expectations of its stakeholders. A bad reputation results when the organisation’s words or deeds fall short of stakeholder expectations. Managing Risks to Reputation Jean-Paul Louisot, Jenny Rayner

3. a. Reputation is an intangible asset that allows the company to better manage the expectations and needs of its various stakeholders, creating differentiation and barriers vis-à-vis its competitors.b. Reputation is the intellectual, emotional and behavioral response as to whether or not the communications and actions of an organization resonate with their needs and interests.ReputationElliot S. Schreiber, Ph.D.,Drexel University

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Key Factors

Reputation is...

HARD TOMEASURE8 Hard to Measure - Roundtable Discussion 23 November 2012

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This is about establishing a brand vision. Do we want to become visible in the first place? Do we want to be seen as the most socially responsible superbrand in the world? Do we want 90% of our target market to think highly of us? Is our goal to have a strong brand, or a good reputation?

The goal is to evaluate the gap between how the business wants to be perceived and how it actually is perceived, and to understand why the gap exists.

Businesses need to measure:• theaspectsofreputationthatmatterthemosttothem• theirperformanceagainstthebrandobjectivestheywanttoreach• thecorrelationsbetweentheirownactivitiesandthisperformance• thecorrelationsbetweenexternaleventsandthisperformance

Ultimately this ‘definition’ of reputation should be unique to every business and based on qualitative information, the challenge being to then deliver a quantitative indication of progress against goals.

Here are, however, some pointers towards a generic definition of ‘reputation’:• Deliveryonpromises• Recognitionofsuchdelivery

(by the people whom we want to impress)• Values• Trust

A business’s brand image is built from the reactions, opinions and activities of those exposed to it, and it is this behaviour, the reasons for it, and the results it leads to that companies need to capture.

Define ‘Reputation’ and Your Reputational GoalsIn order to measure something, you need to know what it is. To you.

Delivery

Recognition

Values

Trust

Reputation Fragility

The example of Starbucks, Amazon, etc. in the UK recently shows that once an issue relating to reputation takes off, not only does it have a serious impact on the bottom line, but it can be very difficult to control.

Researchers from Manchester Business School have calculated that public anger at Starbucks’ payment of just £8.6m in UK tax over the past 13 years on sales of £3.1bn and staff disbelief this week at being told paid lunch breaks, some sick leave and maternity benefits were being axed could result in a fall in sales of as much as 24% in the next year.[source Guardian 7.12.12]

With the impact of social media, a slow response to problems can be as bad as no response at all. Similarly, running social media in ignorance of what is happening elsewhere in the company can be equally disastrous – Quantas recently launched a #quantasluxury campaign at the same time as industrial action was running, leading to a firestorm of sarcastic social media comments from customers caught up in the dispute.


Can customer or ‘crowd sourced’ content be

directed and controlled for the benefit of a brand’s reputation?

Only a clear and honest dialogue will work.

Understand the Reputation Timeline

Short-term, tactical issuesThe timeline of reputation is now increasingly complex – not only are attention spans shortening (42 seconds of ‘concentration’ in the 60s to 5 seconds or less today), but different generations and cultures treat sharing, acting on and creating information differently.

Jeremy gave a great example during the session: despite all the fuss over digital information being ‘available forever’, a tweet has approximately 7 minutes of ‘half life’ (relevance), a Facebook post may be 20 mins, email/web a week or more, and print much longer of course.

The change of timescales with social media is a challenge, but perhaps even more important is the nature of the devices and situations when people ‘take part’.

As people react more and more in short ‘snatches of time’ on mobile devices where they are, reputation will be created by the quality of these small interactions, and the ability of brands to draw customers in.

Obviously both huge problems and huge potential rewards emerge from this new world, for example Coca Cola crowd sourcing their corporate content, focussing on consumer ‘stories’. The challenge of local vs global relevance, impact vs personalisation all need to be customised for each company.

… but long-term, strategic challenges.Ironically, given this difficulty, a consistent and strategic approach to brand reputation management, as aligned with company values, will make responding correctly and appropriately much easier – you know what matters and why.

If you know why people love your brand, it’s much easier to do the right things, in the right forums and in the right timescales.

Businesses should also think about the impact of current activities in the long term – as Surinder pointed out, the excitement generated by a novel product may overshadow societal changes that will be perceived as ‘evil’ years later, and create a reputation backlash. A good example is the change in dietary habits (and the public health consequences) caused by the apparition of fast food chains in emerging markets.

All in the same industry bag?There is codependency between the peers of each industry when it comes to reputation – when one scandal explodes for one bank, the perception that the public will have of all banks is affected.

Any metrics used to assess brand performance should ensure that targets are set realistically with regards to what can be expected within a specific industry context.

Culture, language and interpretationTo look at branding as a purely internal business function is missing the point – especially with so much social and digital activity ‘out there’, beyond the direct control of the company.

The definition of ‘reputation’ and the objectives that a business sets itself in that domain are likely to change dramatically as the organisation moves from local to global markets (or the other way around).

Add to the mix the moral and cultural issues of privacy, meaning (and misunderstanding), and the shifting sands of different digital platforms – it’s not surprising that brands find it difficult to create engagement and affinity with their markets.

Your interpretation of sentiment and the words that people use when they talk about you should always be explored in the context of a culture and a language.

Although software is becoming increasingly ‘intelligent’ at interpreting the qualitative information out there, the time has not come yet where we do not need humans to interpret the results.

Not everyone is ‘online’ or ‘social’ (yet)It is crucial not to base reputation metrics solely on social buzz – always consider the operating context of a business and the habits of its markets before selecting metrics.

Traditional marketing an PR still have a significant role to play. Culture changes slowly, so PR activities that can be amplified on social channels can still be valuable and may have more credibility with some audiences.

Know Your World

3 4A reputation is like trust: it takes years to build it, and seconds to destroy it.

Banks will probably never be loved, and some countries will never rate you 10/10.


Understand the Psychology Behind It All

Customers don’t think about branding that much, but when they do it is often a short cut in their decision making process.

There is increasing evidence that advertising and promotional activities do not have the impact that was traditionally assumed. Standing out and being remembered is far more important than creating a unique hook or even product.

Brand strategy and reputation management therefore have to take into account that presence (being actively visible in the right channels) is just as important as impact (standing out and being different). Think of measuring your business’s ‘presence’ – how much of it is in the right ‘place’? In what new places should you be?

Reputation management strategies should address two aspects:• Theproactive,day-to-dayimprovementandmaintenanceof

reputation: making sure that business activities are selected and prioritised in a way that will help reach brand vision and reputational objectives.

• Themanagementofcrises:beingabletoreactwhenacrisisoccurs,which starts with understanding what the risks are, and where they originate.

Think of:• Internalrisks,forexampleproduct/qualityfailures,information

leakages, etc.• Externalrisks,suchasattentionfromthemedia/public.

Often crises originate when internal and external risks combine – for example, internally an employee is doing something that goes completely against the values you advertise, and externally a member of the public becomes aware of the situation and publicises their reaction.

Two important risks mentioned at the roundtable are worth mentioning in particular:• Internal politics. These can affect alignment and focus, because

separate departments often are used to measuring reputation with certain metrics which they are reluctant to question. Alignment behind a common set of brand objectives is crucial to address this.

• Resources (people and technology) shortages. The larger the organisation, the greater the resource requirements to monitor and manage reputation.

Measurements can help communicate how far a business is from its goals, and how well or badly it is being impacted by a reputation improvement or crisis.

The central understanding of the brand as the core of ‘who we are’ and driver from the top has a crucial impact in planning different activities across different marketing channels and company activities (e.g. sales training).

To empower individuals and teams and move away from silos, give them permission to innovate within clear boundaries, and make sure they know when they are making a positive impact on reputation.

Have a PlanAlign activities to your definition of reputation & clear set of objectives.

Social media has shown that customers value engagement as much as product or service

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A strong reputation suggests that the

products and services being offered by the

firm are of higher quality and that the firm

is responsible and will treat its customers well.

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Identity

JeremygavetheexampleofVodafone,whoplacesocialmediacommunication at the centre of their marketing and customer facing activities, meaning that the conversation is not isolated amongst specific groups or specialists.

Ingredients for successful reputation management planning...

...easy, right?

It is no coincidence if this section comes after six others – the prerequisites matter a lot more than the metrics you choose. A sophisticated indicator will hardly be of any use if no one in your organisation feels it adds value, understand what it measures or trusts the results.

A few things to consider when measuring reputation and brand performance:• You can’t understand performance if you don’t have targets to

which you can compare your actuals. A number alone doesn’t tell you anything useful unless you compare it to something else.

• Have as few metrics as you can. The minimum number is only one. The more metrics you use, the less attention they will get and the more confused people will get about performance.

• Don’t confuse reputation with customer satisfaction. Your reputation is of course impacted by your customers’ experience, but it is ‘lived’ by everyone else as well. What ‘everyone’ means also differs whether your are B2C or B2B.

• Think beyond off-the-shelf and externally supplied measures. Sometimes analysing your own surveys / qualitative data and creating a simple index metric based on those will ‘talk’ a lot more than, say, sentiment analysis.

• Consider ‘indirect’ measures: for example, healthy retention, sales and referral numbers may be excellent (and sufficient) reputation indicators.

Measure!Pick a few metrics, set targets, and go.

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Strong buy-in and sponsorship from the top

Brand visions and objectives

Small selection of metrics to communicate reputation performance clearly and concisely, against objectives

A clear set of boundaries within which people are empowered to innovate and tackle immediate risks — if I know that the customer at the other end of the line is unhappy enough to spread the word, what can I personally do now to resolve their problem?

Initial risk assessment – where are the internal and external risks?

Mechanisms to monitor risks regularly – think of ways everyone can raise a risk rather than limiting the discussion to a committee

Internal communcations plan (get the objectives understood, tell people what to do if a crisis occurs)

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Dashboard Notes:

GEOGRAPHIC /BUSINESS UNITPERFORMANCE

PROFIT PROCESS

ENVIRONMENT

+20%share value

+15%brand valueCUST. SATISFTN

HRREPUTATION

HISTORICAL & FUTUREPERFORMANCE

Stra

tegy

V

alues/Culture Reputation Identity

StrategicBrand

Perspective

Business PerformanceDashboard

When we asked our roundtable panel which elements of our proposed performance management model was the most important driver of reputation, most of them said ‘the Product’.

So, for all the good work you are doing to manage your reputation, don’t forget to ensure that:• Yourproductsareofexcellentquality• Yourprocessesaresettodeliverthislevelofquality• Yourpeopleandtechnologyresourcesaregearedtodeliveraswell

It is difficult to sum up such a complex and wide ranging debate, but in broad terms the priorities for businesses aiming to manage, measure and improve their reputation for the benefit of the business as a whole seem to focus on three issues which determine success: how credible to senior management and the board is brand reputation as a key business driver; how well integrated (and appreciated) are the issues impacting brand reputation across every part of the business; and lastly how effective and responsive the organisation is in engaging with their reputation as seen by the wider public.

These factors do not simply lie at the door of the marketing department, in fact to make your reputation a true asset, product development, training, operations and other departments have to understand and participate in the creation and improvement of the company’s reputation. Great products or services are critical, but if training doesn’t capitalise on these, marketing doesn’t communicate them effectively, or the accounts department doesn’t understand its role in the reputation of the business as a whole, this will not be reflected in the bottom line. Above all, effective use of brand reputation depends upon leadership across the organisation.

This is just a start in an investigation into these ‘hard to measure’ areas of business — there are still some challenging questions each business must answer:• Whocanbeaffectedbyreputationchanges?Whatmatterstothese

audiences? What metrics will they listen to?• Whyisreputationimportant?Whymeasureit?• Whatmetricscanweuse?Whichoneismostuseful?Thekeyoneswe

talked about in our roundtable today (sentiment, brand value), but what else?

• Howdowesetmeasurablereputationobjectives,andhowdoweset the right targets?

• Howdoweadaptourtargetstotheculturalandindustrycontextinwhich we operate?

• Howcanwemakesurethesentimentorfeedbackwecaptureishonest?

Watch this space for more investigations in these areas – or get in touch if you would be interested in developing solutions to these problems.

Illustration of dashboard featuring reputation as a key measurement, alongside more traditional metrics

Deliver ConclusionUltimately if your product isn’t what you say it is, “you’ll get found out”.

Integration, Communication, Credibility

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What to Measure:

Whether or not you have a reputation. You may think you do, but have you researched and tested this beyond your immediate customer/client base?

Whether you are reknowned for what you stand for. Do you stand out in what you deliver and how you relate to your customers?

How good/bad your reputation is. Positive, negative or neutral (perhaps the worst?)

Levels of activity per channel – is the media mix appropriate for your business, and are you focussing the most resources on the most important ones?

Areas not currently measured. Be aware that your reputation is a moving target. As your market develops, media channels change and combine (the importance of the ‘second screen’ activity of audiences is a good example of this) and issues beyond your control change perceptions. You need to be aware of new opportunities as they arise.

Can you help us measure the hard to measure?

Do you have an innovative solution to suggest?

Have you managed to answer some of these questions within your business?

Do you have best-practice case studies which could help?

If any of these apply, we’d love to hear from you, either via our web site (launch date late December 2012) or directly at [email protected]

HARD TOMEASURE

[email protected]

Please use twitter hashtag #hardtomeasure

James [email protected]+44 (0)20 72263749+44 (0)7976 891911www.silverleaf.cowww.brandoptimise.com@creativexplorer

Karen [email protected]+44 (0)7966 598 758www.karentopp.com@karenclondon

Leadership & Management

8 Steps to Successful Brand Reputation Measurement