BRAND ENGAGEMENT. Introduction to Brand Engagement ATTACHMENT ENGAGE FOCUSED MESSAGE ATTRACTION DEVELOP ADVERTISING ADVERTISING

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1 Engagement Intelligent Market Research BRAND COMMUNICATION COMMUNICATION ORGANISATION EXPERIENCE CREDIBILITY MESSAGE ATTACHMENT ATTACHMENT RELIABLE MANAGEMENT SOCIAL MEDIA SOCIAL MEDIA CREDIBILITY MEDIA AWARENESS ENGAGE CONSUMER PERCEPTION DEVELOP DEVELOP ADVERTISING TRUST TRUST BLOG BLOG BLOG TRUST ADVERTISING VOICE FOCUS BEHAVIOUR BEHAVIOUR FOCUSED FOCUSED FOCUSED CONSUMER MARKETING QUALITY ATTRACTION EXPOSURE TWITTER CREDIBILITY DEVELOP TRUST BLOG VOICE BEHAVIOUR BELIEF MEDIA TRUST QUALITY MEASURE EXPOSURE TWITTER TECHNOLOGY ENGAGEMENT

2 Engagement Contents: engagement: Why measure it and when? 2-3 Analysis of awareness: Unprompted 4 Analysis of awareness: Unprompted awareness of competitors of current suppliers 5 Prompted awareness is high for all these organisations 6 Perception, performance and personality of the top six from their customers viewpoint 7 Matching key decision factors and how suppliers rate against them 8-9 Experience versus received impression; how does perception differ between customers and non-customers? 10 Likelihood of considering this supplier 11 attributes and personality 12 attributes 13 About us Vanson Bourne - Introduction to Engagement

3 Engagement engagement: Why measure it and when? In the hierarchy of motives for marketing communications, establishing simple recognition of your existence within your target market is probably the baseline. Following closely are getting that target group to understand what you do, why what you do should matter to them and why your expertise qualifies you for consideration. Objectives can be set against all of these and it is good practice to measure progress toward their achievement. That measurement can be ongoing, campaign or event driven, to check how far an activity moves the needle. s Designer TM Logo About brand awareness: Unprompted awareness: Why is this important? Firstly, a good level of unprompted awareness within your target market indicates that your brand has solid foundations. This in turn means that more nuanced communications designed to create or reinforce brand understanding and differentiation have a stronger platform. Equally, from a sales support/demand generation perspective, it s arguable that a potential customer with your brand front of mind is more likely to investigate your offer at the appropriate moment or be open to a sales approach. By measuring awareness you can a) assess progress, b) judge how ready the market is to absorb messages that differentiate the brand and c) compare competitors performance. 02 Vanson Bourne - Introduction to Engagement

4 Engagement engagement: Why measure it and when? About brand perception: Measuring how the market perceives your brand is important in a range of ways. Firstly, thinking about the alignment of market understanding to your offer/capabilities/experience: How well is the company, via all its interactions with the market, conveying its focus, strengths and expertise? How do key competitors compare? Do customers have a different view from non-customers and are the views customers hold what you would expect or wish for? Secondly, thinking about how well aligned your offer/capabilities/experience are to the market s key buying factors: And there is a wider context in which brand perception informs buyer behaviour. At a level deeper than objective considerations of your company s ability to deliver specific services or products is a sense of the brand s attributes, even personality. Exploring deeper levels of objective and subjective market perception through research can be very enlightening. Objective or subjective; perceived or experienced, is a personality discernible? Is a personality deliberately communicated and, if so, how successfully is it received? How do customer and non-customer viewpoints differ and what does that tell us about how we communicate? This introduction to brand engagement research is based on real results from a survey of 200 IT decision makers in UK enterprise organisations. We investigated a particular technology sector, but in order to focus on the nature of brand engagement research, rather than the specifics of the findings, we have removed the names of the companies that featured. What do they actually regard as the most important factors and how are your brand and competitive brands perceived to measure up against them? 03 Vanson Bourne - Introduction to Engagement

5 Engagement Analysis of awareness: Unprompted There is a clear top three with the rest some way behind: When thinking about technology providers in the service category being examined, around a third of respondents refer to Red (35%) and/or Green (32%) unprompted. Almost a quarter mention Orange (24%), but no others are mentioned by more than one in six respondents. These three have significant top of mind awareness advantage, but even in the best case two-thirds of respondents DID NOT recall the lead company. The absence of clearly dominant brands suggests that all organisations in this sector have an opportunity to build an awareness advantage, upon which to build recognition of their offer and positive perception of their status. What do the responses of customers and non-customers teach us?: The diagram illustrates how, in this technology sector, the front of mind awareness enjoyed by leading brands is predominantly in their customer base. The two brands, orange and teal, that have around a third of their unprompted awareness outside their base are multi-technology, multi-service organisations - ones that are liable to come to mind in most technology contexts. They are experiencing the halo effect of being in many technology segments. In general it means that, in the non-customer segment, there is much jockeying for superiority. Level of unprompted awareness Customer Red Green Non-Customer Orange Pink Purple Teal 04 Vanson Bourne - Introduction to Engagement

6 Engagement Analysis of awareness: Unprompted awareness of competitors of current suppliers Analysis of brand is a comparative exercise. That means looking at the results for competing brands gives the dimension of context that shows where you need to focus and how hard, in order to establish a lead. Our tendency to categorise and differentiate between brands manifests itself most when we are asked to describe them. But the precursor is awareness and the word clouds here illustrate very effectively that no brand has a fixed or generic level of awareness; the users of the six market leaders in this survey ALL reveal different levels of awareness of the other major players in this market. As an indicator of brand strength within a customer base this example is very powerful. We see that Red customers name their supplier most, yet Pink customers name Red and Green at least as often as their own supplier's name. For Red we can see that their customers were most aware of them whereas worryingly for Pink their customers had higher awareness of their competitors than Pink itself. The level of awareness is indicated by the size of the competitors around each brand. Showing the differing levels of unprompted awareness that customers of red brand and pink brand have of other suppliers PURPLE BRAND RED BRAND PURPLE BRAND ORANGE BRAND RED BRAND PINK BRAND GREEN BRAND GREEN BRAND PINK BRAND ORANGE BRAND TEAL BRAND 05 Vanson Bourne - Introduction to Engagement

7 Engagement Prompted awareness is high for all these organisations Prompted awareness, where the researcher offers a list of brands and asks the respondent which ones they know, is a weak indicator of the success of an individual company s marketing communications; any research within a correctly qualified user base should deliver high prompted awareness scores for all the leading players in the field. It is useful either to compare brands or to compare how sub-groups (for example certain sectors, or size-bands, or even countries), within the overall sample perform, especially when coupled with a measurement of awareness of service offering or specialisation. The make-up of a supplier's overall awareness In this example, when they are prompted with a company name, around nine out of ten respondents are aware that each of the top six organisations supplies the IT service in question. The illustration reflects the respective customer and awareness profile of the survey's top six vendors and illustrates vividly how even these strong brands have different levels of market entrenchment. Red Green Pink Orange Purple Teal Current customer Previous customer Aware of and have some knowledge 06 Vanson Bourne - Introduction to Engagement

8 Engagement Perception, performance and personality of the top six from their customers viewpoint More or less all respondents were able to recall, unprompted, at least one provider, the average being over two names each. Yet, when asked which company is the industry leader in supplying this service to UK enterprises, 50% say they don t know. How are we to interpret this? Is disappointment with their current supplier a factor, is it vendors inability to differentiate themselves beyond their customer base or is it simply that the market is crowded and confusing? This illustration highlights the customer group of each of the top six providers in this sector. It reveals how few, even in the best cases, regard their supplier as "the industry leader". Red Customer Pink Customer Green Customer Orange Customer Teal Customer Purple Customer My provider is the industry leader Another provider is the industry leader I don t know who the industry leader is 07 Vanson Bourne - Introduction to Engagement

9 Engagement Matching key decision factors and how suppliers rate against them To set a baseline against which to measure how well suppliers are meeting, or potential suppliers are perceived to be able to meet, their market's key service criteria, the survey looks first at what those criteria are. The illustration here reveals a stand-out priority, reliability. That said effectively all respondents also selected value for money and support in their top three requirements, regardless of who their supplier is. Overall, reliability (69% of respondents selected this as being one of their top three requirements), support (56% top three) and value for money (46% top three) are the factors respondents will require a potential supplier to meet. In messaging and sales engagement terms, these are essentially hygiene factors that simply qualify a potential supplier to be considered in more detail. So they are essential to communicate but challenging to set up as differentiators. First choice service criterion Reliability Value for money Support Scalability Ability to support a variety of devices/platforms Ability to specialise in a particular area Customisation Track record in similar industry to my organisation's Provision of employee education and awareness courses Behind the headline outcomes shown on the illustration there are one or two variations in response that might hint at why a certain provider has been selected ahead of others. Red customers are the most likely to rate reliability as one of the top three factors they would consider (79% doing so); Purple customers are most likely to rate value for money as one of their top three factors of consideration (59%); Orange customers are most likely to rate support as one of their top three factors for consideration (65%). 08 Vanson Bourne - Introduction to Engagement

10 Engagement Matching key decision factors and how suppliers rate against them Only a minority of current customers of the top six providers rate their supplier s performance as excellent when it comes to the most important factors. Looking at the factor that is the runaway leader, reliability is especially revealing; only two of the leading suppliers inspire more than three in ten customers to describe their reliability as excellent. This outcome could explain why so few customers of the leading companies by share describe their provider as the industry leader. The takeaway here is that it is important to reinforce perception of excellence in the aspects of the service that buyers regard as most important; being the best in those important areas is far more useful than being perceived as OK in all of them. As the illustration here shows, there is a wide variation in how many customers regard their supplier as "excellent" in the key decision-forming factors; breaking through that is neither quick nor easy so it is crucial to be able to see which elements make the biggest difference. The survey has provoked customers across UK enterprises to express differing levels of satisfaction with their provider. This allows the commissioning company to do two things. Firstly it can address its own apparent points of weakness with its own customer base. Secondly, where customers rate it more highly in key selection criteria than competitors customers rate their supplier, that s the competitors Achilles heel, which can be exploited in marketing and proposal writing. In the case of this survey, the feedback from customers of the leading providers is that there is room for improvement, leaving scope for the commissioning company to exploit those differences to its own advantage. Teal Reliability Value for money Support Scalability Orange Red Purple Green Proportion of each supplier's customers rating it as "excellent" for these service criteria Pink 09 Vanson Bourne - Introduction to Engagement

11 Engagement Experience versus received impression; how does perception differ between customers and non-customers? Reflecting the power of positive experience over marketing communications to create positive attitudes, the difference between how customers and non-customers respond is always noticeable and sometimes wide. Irrespective of which brand we look at, non-customer perceptions of the company's capabilities are lower than customers'. This indicates the uphill struggle a would-be supplier faces when converting a new customer and why customer case studies/testimonials are so important in helping to demonstrate to a would-be customer that the challenger does possess the required skills and experience. The illustration highlights how unlikely a non-customer is to describe a possible supplier as "excellent". It also shows how undifferentiated the six leading suppliers are in the minds of non-customers; as the chart shows, they are mostly seen as "average" and with very similar scores. Customers describing their supplier as excellent Customers describing their supplier as average Non-customer who describes ANY supplier but their own as excellent Non-customer who describes ANY supplier but their own as average Teal Orange Red Purple Green Pink 10 Vanson Bourne - Introduction to Engagement

12 Engagement Likelihood of considering this supplier The acid test of regard for a brand could be said to be whether you would consider using it. So it is no surprise to see in the illustration here, that the less positive feedback given by non-customers, that we saw on page 10, is reflected in their much lower likelihood of considering a brand they do not already use. That is not to say that there is no value in creating a level of awareness within the non-customer base. That group is almost as likely as customers to say that they "would usually consider" a given supplier. That degree of commitment to considering a new supplier requires a level of awareness and understanding. Teal Orange Red Purple Green Pink On the other hand, the positive mood that customers exhibit towards their preferred supplier is reflected to some degree in the comparative strength of their commitment to that brand in the future, with on average around 45% saying they would always consider that brand. Whilst this is around five times as many as non-customers, it suggests that buyers in this technology sector do not wholeheartedly commit and are naturally conscious that better solutions might be found elsewhere. Or, at the very least, that they should not be taken for granted by their current supplier. Overall, however, this serves to underline the earlier point that converting a non-customer is difficult, whilst also flagging the risk of taking existing customers for granted. Customers Would always consider using their services Non-customers 11 Vanson Bourne - Introduction to Engagement

13 Engagement attributes and personality A brand can allow a personality to develop or it can hone everything it does to shape it. In the technology segment featured here, whether the outcomes are deliberate or accidental, there are differences in how customers of the different brands regard their supplier. Contrasting customer perceptions - the best and worst scores within the top six vendors for each of the attributes listed Before looking at how individual providers in this technology sector are perceived, it is instructive to look at the overall customer perceptions; to note how certain attributes are ascribed to suppliers far more readily than others, especially those positive personality traits that could be seen as the bellwethers of genuine engagement. So one message here for the commissioning company is that it should never imagine that the job of communicating what it stands for is done. More pointedly, given that these responses are from users of the respective companies services, service delivery on the ground has to meet the brand promise or it negates the communications effort This illustration shows that, within the general picture of certain attributes being ascribed to vendors more readily than others, there genuinely is a variance in market perception. Not all vendors are the same; for certain of the attributes measured, as the illustration clearly demonstrates, the percentage of top-six customers recognising that trait in their supplier varies widely. Market leader Reliable Experienced Responsive Trustworthy Provide value for money Technology leaders Great reputation Intelligent Flexible Easy to communicate with R&D/proactive research of threats They add value to our business Good listeners Passionate Lowest % Average % Highest % 12 Vanson Bourne - Introduction to Engagement

14 Engagement attributes Over half of each supplier s customers describe them as reliable with Red s customers being most likely to describe them so (62%). The perceived personality of a brand might be deduced from the words and phrases respondents most often select to describe them. In this example we provided customers with a set of stock descriptions of their provider. Some of those descriptions relate to the external feel of the organisation and others much more to the experience of working with them. Red is most likely to be described as trustworthy (41%), compared to Purple who is the least likely to be described as such (25%). The word clouds to the right illustrate the words that customers are most likely to associate with their current suppliers most share the common attributes of reliable and market leader, though particular strengths (such as the perception of Pink as value for money) or weaknesses (such as only 34% seeing Purple as a market leader) are also highlighted. Organisations can use this data to play to their strengths and minimise their perceived weaknesses compared to rival organisations when marketing their services to the wider world. FLEXIBLE RESPONSIVE EXPERIENCED VALUE FOR MONEY RESPONSIVE VALUE FOR MONEY INTELLIGENT MARKET LEADER ADD VALUE VALUE FOR MONEY PASSIONATE BRAND RELIABLE EXPERIENCED PASSIONATE GREAT REPUTATION TRUSTWORTHY TRUSTWORTHY PROACTIVE RESEARCH TECHNOLOGY LEADERS GREAT REPUTATION BRAND RELIABLE INTELLIGENT GOOD LISTENERS GREAT REPUTATION FLEXIBLE EXPERIENCED BRAND RELIABLE PASSIONATE PROACTIVE RESEARCH COMMUNICATION TRUSTWORTHY TECHNOLOGY LEADERS GOOD LISTENERS COMMUNICATION PROACTIVE RESEARCH MARKET LEADER RESPONSIVE ADD VALUE FLEXIBLE GOOD LISTENERS COMMUNICATION ADD VALUE MARKET LEADER TECHNOLOGY LEADERS INTELLIGENT 13 Vanson Bourne - Introduction to Engagement

15 Engagement About Us Who we are We re a global technology market research business. We re independent, trusted and deliver great insight and value for money to technology providers and their PR companies. Through rigorous technology market research that delivers rich data insights, we help technology vendors better understand, and communicate more effectively with, their fast-changing B2B and consumer technology markets. We focus on what we do best: we design penetrative IT market research, apply our experience in analysis and deliver fresh insight. Outstanding service guaranteed. What We Do We are specialists in market research for the technology sector, globally. We investigate the plans, motivations, concerns and behaviours of technology specialists in IT departments, of end-users in business and of consumers. The result is independent insight that helps our clients steer their marketing planning and communications. We re best known for our work that adds independent content to technology vendor marketing communications activity. After all that s the output that has the public face, and we are rather good at it. But behind that, we are engaged for all manner of technology market research requirements, providing the information and evidence that technology marketers need beyond their communications brief. Research for Communications Market Metrics Engagement Customer Responsiveness Event Audience Feedback Omnibus Deliverables 14 Vanson Bourne - Introduction to Engagement

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