A simple test to measure brand equity
Marty Neumeier’s Brand Commitment Scale survey
Knowing how to measure the return on the investment you make in building your brand’s equity can be hard. Unlike tactical marketing activity, returns can’t be gauged as easily or simply as reviewing analytics and sales figures. And yet the rewards of investing in brand-building are well-known to grow over time.
In his book The Brand Flip, Marty Neumeier recommends that you monitor how well your brand resonates with your customers or audience by using a simple survey: the Brand Commitment Scale survey.
Marty Neumeier is the respected author of best-selling brand books such as The Brand Gap and Zag. He has worked with, among others, Apple, Google and Patagonia.
In The Brand Flip, Neumeier describes the scale of ‘brand commitment’ as a ladder. The bottom rung is ‘Satisfaction’ – the customer has experienced your brand product or service and found it to be as expected. The next rung in the ladder is ‘Delight’ – they have experienced a level of surprise and delight with their interaction with your brand, this is the point in the customer relationship where they become loyal to your brand, experiencing an emotional response. Next up ‘Engagement’ – your customer subscribes to your brand tribe “With membership comes increasing loyalty, escalating repurchase habits, and an emotional attachment that goes far beyond patronage”. You know you’ve reached nirvana when your customer has reached the top rung on the ladder: ‘Empowerment’ – they depend on your brand for social status, personal growth or business success. These ‘empowered’ members of the brand tribe attract others, refer with confidence and stand by your brand promise.
From this, Neumeier devised an 8-step survey that measures how you’re progressing on the ladder.
The survey questions and scoring criteria
Each ‘rung’ has two statements; customers are invited to rate their agreement with them on a scale of 1 to 5. These first two scales relate to SATISFACTION the highest subtotal score is 10.
These next two scales relate to DELIGHT multiply the subtotal by 2. The total highest score is 20.
These next two scales relate to ENGAGEMENT multiply the subtotal by 3. The total highest score is 30.
The final two scales relate to EMPOWERMENT multiply the subtotal by 4. The total highest score is 40.
The final highest possible score is a grand total of 100.
Test and test again
Whilst this survey focuses on brand loyalty and there may well be other criteria you’ll want to track, this is a great place to start. By running this test now and again at regular points over time, you can start to measure the effectiveness of your brand-building activity.
The survey and ladder are both outlined in The Brand Flip, Why Customers Now Run Companies – And How to Profit from It