Behavioral Science and Brand Tracking (Part 4 of 6)

Editor's Note: Continuing this series focused on closing the gap between what people say they do and what they actually do, known as the say-do-gap. Each article will look at a traditional research method (e.g., a brand tracker or a concept test) and show how researchers can overlay behavioral science to the method to get a deeper understanding of the why, as well as the what, uncover unconscious drivers and motivations, and close that say-do-gap. Bring on the learning! Meanwhile, in case you missed it, check out Part 3 of this series focused on behavioral science and concept testing: Behavioral Science and Concept Testing (Part 3 of 6)

What do people think or feel about our brand?

Behavioral Science is often used to answer big complex questions; how do we define value? What role does sustainability play in our purchasing decisions? But to only look at behavioral science through this lens misses the true value of the approach.

Research participants don’t always tell us the truth. That’s not because they’re making an active or conscious decision to withhold, but more likely because we’re terrible at articulating our behavior and motivations. This creates a gap between reported behavior and actual behavior that can lead to poor outcomes for brands, products, and services. However, there is an answer; behavioral science. In this series, I’ll be sharing how you can apply behavioral science techniques to traditional research methods and close the gap between claimed and actual.

This week we look at brand tracking

Some brand trackers have been going on so long they had started before you had even been born. Understandably, brands want to know how perceptions of the brand change over time and when issues that require attention may crop up. The brand tracker is the natural way to do that: record the opinion of her audience on a regular cycle and see how it changes.

But the tracker only reveals one tempting corner of truth: has the brand score gone up or down? The problem is, is that it won’t tell you why, or how to change it. It invites us to provoke a debate among stakeholders that can never be resolved.

What’s more, there is a distance between the outputs of the brand tracker and the actions of consumers. Trackers capture claimed attitudes, not true behavior. So a brand score could go up even when sales go down. More often than not, there is a correlation between brand scores and sales, but it’s far from perfect.

How can we solve this problem with a research method as old as time?

What can you do?

Instead of asking for straightforward rating scores against each brand, you need to expand the information you capture. Digging deep to understand the underlying brand narratives and choices people make when they interact with the brand. These narratives provide deeper, more predictive insight while also offering that simple score that can be compared between waves.

Each response to the tracker should capture a story or statement about the brand as well as the numerical score. With text analysis and word associations, you can find out the deeper meaning behind the ratings and offer a powerful way to dig into the quarterly changes in the score. By recording choices in a simulated shopping environment, you get a more accurate picture of consideration and purchase likelihood.

The data identifies consumers who give the brand a lower score and measures which competitors they are switching to. The outputs of a brand narrative tracker closely mirror real consumer behavior and give you an explanation for why people are choosing or not choosing your brand. And this can be done without excessively burdening respondents with dozens of extra questions. 

The brand tracker is a huge part of the research industry. Some agencies make a good living by providing brand stakeholders with that single golden number. But we have known for some time that the tracker is lacking. You have the opportunity to make the tracker relevant again, still, provide that easy comparable single number, but also identify the ‘why’ behind any changes close that gap between claimed and actual.