BMR Brand Keys offers a uniquely powerful research system with applications covering four broad areas. Each addresses one major element of the marketing process:

BrandWorks: for category and brand research, strategic brand planning, brand engagement, brand strengths & weaknesses, brand opportunities & threats, competitor brands, brand equity metrics, brand tracking.

AdWorks: for predicting the effects of advertising pre-spend, or evaluating advertising effects post-spend. Covers brand communication efforts of every kind (proposed or current, in any medium), including advertising, promotions, packaging, logo, sponsorship, and events.

MediaWorks: for evaluating the effectiveness pre-spend of any media vehicle (or combination of vehicles) used to deliver brand communications to consumers, including traditional and new media: TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, outdoor, online, mobile, and social.

LoyaltyWorks: for identifying the strategic drivers of loyalty among different consumer segments, and how to build and sustain customer loyalty in both consumer and business markets.

Elements of two, or sometimes three, of these services may be integrated into the same assignment, depending on individual requirements. This gives significant time and cost savings.

Whatever your brand, communications or business issue, we’ll devise a uniquely effective research solution that’s not only affordable, but one you can bank on.

Our unique approach and solution-set work to best effect when established as part of the client’s strategic brand planning and marketing evaluation process.

BMR Brand Keys is a consultancy and service provider and, as such, we enter into a consultative relationship with clients. We seek to build long term relationships based on unique know-how and superior added value.

BrandWorks

BrandWorks identifies where strategic opportunities exist for your brand, as well as how to capitalise on them – opportunities traditional methods usually miss.

It does this by determining the four strategic drivers accounting for 90% of consumer engagement and purchasing in the category, revealing what actually drives brand preference and where consumers are taking the category.

It identifies where your brand stands strategically relative to the category Ideal, and relative to its main competitors.

It also reveals precisely what action your brand needs to take to benefit from emerging opportunities in the short to medium term.

It does this in three stages.

First, it determines what motivates the behaviour of consumers in your category, and what their expectations are. This is expressed as the consumer’s Ideal for the category, with four component drivers. The percent contribution each driver makes to category purchasing is quantified and ranked in importance.

Second, the consumer perception your brand and its main competitors are compared to the Ideal. This strategic overview reveals the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT analysis) for each main brand.

Third, it opens up the four drivers to reveal the attributes, benefits and values (ABVs) comprising each driver. The higher the percent contribution made by an ABV within its driver, the more substantial its effect. ABVs are the tactical buttons to press to engage consumers more effectively with your brand.

The output is presented as a set of bar charts (see Outputs).

BrandWorks is also the perfect solution for products and services that are losing their ‘brandness’, which is to say, are losing their way. This is more than the trend towards category standardisation and the inroads made by supermarket ‘brands’.

The cause is a failure of brands to properly differentiate themselves, to stand for something distinctive and desirable in the consumer mind. “Differentiate or die”, says Jack Trout, the positioning expert.

BrandWorks highlights where opportunities lie for effective brand differentiation. If you’re looking to position your brand in a way that’s sure to work, or need to check how effective your current positioning is relative to competing brands, then BrandWorks is the most effective tool available by far.

It also provides the strategic gold an advertising agency needs to produce creative, effective ads that will engage consumers more positively with your brand. It does this by pinpointing exactly where the brand needs to focus its positioning, strategically.

BrandWorks puts marketers back in the driving seat. It identifies the most strategically effective direction for your brand, as well as how best to engage consumers with it. Do that and you’ll never look back.

Some of the world’s best known and trusted brands are using this powerful methodology and model today. It can work for you too.

BrandWorks is also surprisingly affordable, even for smaller brands. It’s sure to pay for itself many, many times over.

Talk to us to find out more (see Contact).

A blind pig may find truffles, but it helps to know that they grow under oak trees.
David Ogilvy (1911-92)

AdWorks

AdWorks determines how well a current advertising campaign, sponsorship or other marketing initiative is working to build engagement and purchasing for the brand, or how well a proposed initiative will work.

For example, it reveals the extent that the campaign is, or will be, on-strategy for the brand, and why. It also reveals whether the chosen strategy is optimum, and if not, why not.

The rationale behind AdWorks is simple: whenever a brand reaches out to consumers by way of advertising or some other communications effort, the brand should benefit in a tangible and quantifiable way that’s strategically significant, and likely to result in profitable sales.

AdWorks measures precisely the effect a new campaign will have on engaging consumers with the brand. These metrics always correlate strongly with consumer behaviour and sales.

AdWorks can also be used to determine the effect a competitor’s ad campaign is having on its own brand, and how it will likely impact yours.

The AdWorks methodology employs the same principles and approach as described for Brandworks, as follows:

First, the category Ideal is determined among a representative sample of category purchasers. Then the standing of your brand in the absence of the new advertising (or promotion, or packaging, or whatever) is assessed relative to the category Ideal. Finally, the impact and effect on the brand with its new advertising material is determined relative to where the brand stands without it.

The analysis reveals the following insights:

• How much the brand will benefit from the new campaign.
  
• The category drivers where your advertising will resonate most.
  
• The optimum communications strategy for the brand, and why.
  
• Which competitors are most likely to suffer adversely as a result of your campaign.
  
• The strengths and weaknesses of competitor positioning and brand communications.

An analysis at executional level is usually included as part of an AdWorks study. This identifies (i) what messages the ad communicates and how effectively it does so; (ii) how well the ad is branded; (iii) strengths and weaknesses; (iv) cut-through potential; and (v) its likely effect on purchase consideration.

This additional analysis is usually conducted for TV executions, but can equally be applied to radio, print, outdoor, and online advertising executions.

AdWorks can be conducted at any stage of an ad’s development, from creative concept or animation, to rough edit or finished execution. The closer the material is to finished form, the better will the assessment reflect consumer engagement and marketplace reality.

It makes no difference to its reliability whether the assessment is done before the campaign is launched, during the campaign, or after the campaign. A single AdWorks assessment is sufficient. If segmentation is critical, then this must be built into the research design.

In addition, AdWorks is the umbrella methodology
we use to assess and measure the contribution that any marketing initiative, whether current or proposed, makes towards engaging consumers with the brand, thereby lifting the brand’s equity and sales potential.

This can be done reliably for any form of advertising or promotion, brand positioning, logo, new packaging, sponsorship, brand variant, or new product concept. And this can usually be done before you spend your budget.

Talk to us to find out more (see Contact).

A blind pig may find truffles, but it helps to know that they grow under oak trees.
David Ogilvy (1911-92)

MediaWorks

MediaWorks is a powerful new tool for assessing the ability of different media options to engage consumers with the brands advertised on them.

It is an established fact that brand perception and consumer engagement with the brand is affected, for better or worse, not only by the explicit message it advertises, but by the medium and context in which that advertising appears.

For example, two media vehicles delivering much the same audience can result in very different levels of consumer engagement with the brand.

This difference is due to the different capacities of the two vehicles to engage their audience with the specific brand being advertised.

Traditional media-planning metrics are insensitive to differences like this. They see both media options as equal. The reality is otherwise, as is the outcome for the advertised brand.

This effect is much more significant than traditional demographics with reach and frequency analysis can indicate. Left undetected, it leaves open the likelihood that a sizeable part of the media budget will be assigned unwittingly to ineffective media, and thereby largely wasted.

Many planners recognise this and try to allow for such differences, but only subjectively.

MediaWorks is the first research system to address this issue objectively and successfully. It isolates and measures the effect of the interaction on the advertised brand, over and above the message the brand advertises.

Because gains or losses in these metrics always correlate strongly with consumer behaviour in the marketplace, they can be used to optimise media plans, boost advertising efficiencies, and increase the sales and profitability of your brands.

In fact a MediaWorks assessment enables the quality and effectiveness of traditional media planning to be enhanced by 20%, on average. This has been extensively validated.

Engagement with the brand is the ultimate objective of any communications strategy. Nothing can substitute for it; without engagement a brand cannot prosper.

A brand utilises four engagement vehicles by way of outreach to the consumer. These are:

1. Platform (TV, Print, Online, Sponsorship)
2. Context (Programme, Webpage, Magazine, Event)
3. Message (Ad or Communication)
4. Experience (Store, Event, Consumption)

A brand like Marks & Spencer, for example, might use print (Platform) and buy space in a popular magazine like The Sunday Times Style supplement (Context); then run a series of ads (Message) designed to bring people into the store (Experience).

Each of these vehicles is an opportunity to engage the consumer; each is also an opportunity for failure to engage. This is important, because getting attention and even awareness for the brand does not lead de facto to engagement with the brand to a positive end.

How many advertising campaigns have disappointed their brand owners, or have largely disappeared without leaving much trace except a substantial media bill in their wake?

It’s no longer acceptable in today’s complex media ecology for media planners and marketers to rely solely on standard “reach and frequency” thinking. Even when the editorial environment and numbers look right, the brand’s values and the media vehicle’s values may not be consonant.

Besides, apart from the time or space paid for – and presumably some audience – what do brand owners really get in return? They get no proof or certification that anyone actually saw or heard the message – let alone bought the brand.

The solution is to insert the brand’s values into the media planning process. This allows planners to predict increased levels of brand awareness and positive brand imagery. That means you’ll connect better with your target audience and maximise the effectiveness of your brand’s advertising.

MediaWorks does this by measuring the media platforms and contexts that will optimise audience engagement with your brand – and it can do so before you spend your money.

With MediaWorks you’ll get a lot more out of your media budget than was ever possible before, including a return you can bank on.

Talk to us to find out more (see Contact).

A blind pig may find truffles, but it helps to know that they grow under oak trees.
David Ogilvy (1911-92)

MediaWorks Plus

MediaWorks Plus identifies and measures the engagement effects on the brand of cross-media consumption. In other words, it provides the diagnostics to enable marketers and planners to identify the impact that different media options have on the success of an advertised brand when those media are used together.

These diagnostics can also identify how – and in what ways – the media combinations work from a strategic brand management perspective. This allows media to be allocated on a more synergistic, efficient, and cost effective basis (see Case 5 in Outputs).

The brand-to-media engagement assessments used by BMR Brand Keys reveal which combinations of media platforms and contexts provide real differentiation and superiority for the brand – that is, above and beyond audience access, visibility, and awareness opportunities.

When consumers are invited to engage with a brand through advertising, ticking all the right boxes means more today than it did even five years ago.

Marketers and planners can virtually guarantee that target audiences will have the opportunity to be exposed to their messages, but they cannot guarantee any positive outcome for the advertised brand – at least not with traditional media tools.

Yet the fact remains: What marketers really want to know is what’s going to happen when the ad runs? Knowing sometime after the ad has run is just history.

And given that media usually account for the largest portion by far of marketing budgets, they need these metrics before the media spend is incurred.

This is easier said than done. Here’s why:

• the media planner’s job is much more complex and prone to error today than ever before.
  
  
• it is increasingly difficult to connect with target consumers, engage them, optimise media selection, and deliver advertising effectiveness.
  
  
• the growing array of old and new media touch-points now available, each championing its own values and communication capabilities.
  
  
• the labyrinth of cross-media consumption, which is difficult to measure and assess, and is consequently little understood.
  
  
• the numerous subtle ways consumers use to gate-keep these media.
  

If we then add the dynamic created by the interaction of different brands with this crowded media scene, the whole becomes unwieldy and difficult to disentangle, let alone manage efficiently.

MediaWorks Plus cuts through all this to produce easy-to-use metrics that reliably capture cross-media-consumption on an integrated basis.

As stated, this is done using validated brand-to-media engagement assessments. And it can be done and the results made available before you spend the media budget.

This is precisely the tool marketers and media planners most need to cope with today’s multimedia ecology.

These new metrics get beyond ‘eyeballs’ and demographics – although they can and should be used in tandem with them – to achieve what brand owners most want and expect: a truly strategic media plan, one built around the right media in the right combination.

To summarise: These metrics are proven to correlate highly with positive consumer behaviour. That’s why they can be used with confidence to optimise media plans in a way never before possible, as well as to boost advertising efficiencies and increase the sales and profitability of your brand.

Isn’t this what brand owners and marketers everywhere want today?

Talk to us to find out more (see Contact).

A blind pig may find truffles, but it helps to know that they grow under oak trees.
David Ogilvy (1911-92)

LoyaltyWorks

LoyaltyWorks shows how to retain the customers you’ve got, and how to win more without sacrificing profitability. This can be done for any brand, for any consumer segment, and in any product or service category.

The principle is simple, yet often overlooked or misunderstood: Consumers are not so much loyal to your brand, as loyal to their Ideal for the category in which your brand competes.

The category Ideal is conceived by consumers themselves. It encapsulates and expresses everything they want and expect from the category. This makes for a very strong bond with the consumer, and it is this that governs consumer behaviour in the category.

This bond is far stronger than that between consumer and brand, and explains how consumers can so easily choose another brand at the point of sale.

The problem for marketers today is how to harness this powerful principle to best effect in the service of the brand. This too is simple enough.

BMR Brand Keys sees it like this: Know from the inside exactly what consumers want and expect from their category Ideal, make sure your offer comes close, then tell them it does – and tell them engagingly. This requires precise positioning and effective brand communications.

But this is usually misapplied in real life through a mistaken or partial picture of what consumers really want, because the right methodology was not used to find out the correct and full picture in the first place. The result is often disappointment, or worse.

LoyaltyWorks determines how consumers actually buy within the category. This can’t be done simply by asking what they buy most often or what they bought last time or what they say they’ll do next time. This has its place, but it misses the elephant in the room.

The elephant comprises the all-important emotional drivers of consumer engagement, which also drive loyalty within the category. This requires a specialist approach and methodology.

We measure these emotional drivers and fuse them with the rational elements of consumer choice in the category – i.e. the relevant attributes, benefits and values (ABVs). This leads to a comprehensive picture of how consumers – and different consumer segments – view the category, compare offerings, and buy.

To become loyal, category consumers must first become engaged with your brand. This occurs only when consumers believe the brand will deliver in the most important category drivers. This can be cultivated by strongly associating your brand with the highest rated ABVs within those drivers.

LoyaltyWorks provides clear strategic direction based on what’s possible and practical, including a road map showing how to get there.

It has the same built-in predictive capability as our other research services. This means you’ll know for sure that what you’re doing is right and what the final outcome will look like.

This means that you can rally your whole team to create an extraordinarily successful brand platform.

Retaining loyalty, let alone growing it, can appear fickle or elusive today. Some pundits even suggest that the notion of brand loyalty is discredited and hardly applies any more. This is just not true, and is due solely to misunderstanding.

Consumers are loyal first and foremost to their category Ideal. This is cardinal. But they express this loyalty through the brands that best meet or exceed their Ideal. The art is to understand this from the inside and apply it intelligently and creatively.

LoyaltyWorks shows how to do this, providing both the insights and direction to get it right, and get it right every time.

LoyaltyWorks provides 20/20 foresight, not just 20/20 hindsight. This means you can predict customer loyalty for your brand, and also how consumers will respond to your next marketing campaign.

We’ve never met a marketer or brand owner who does not want (or wish for) such a powerful tool.

Talk to us to find out more (see Contact).

A blind pig may find truffles, but it helps to know that they grow under oak trees.
David Ogilvy (1911-92)

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