Measuring Brand Equity: Twinings

Yesterday morning I visited the Twinings HQ in Andover for a session of ‘sharing and leveraging experiences’ with various members of their International Markets team. Twinings is part of Associated British Foods (ABF) and is, at the moment, one of ABF’s star companies in terms of marketing.

As a B2C product, Twinings do a lot of promotional marketing in order to connect with consumers and ultimately change their buying behaviour. This promotional marketing includes trade shows, shop floor sampling, coupons, and competitions. Sounds like common sense, doesn’t it? But how can you be sure that all the money you spend on promotional activity is actually having a positive effect on your profit?

About 2 years ago Twinings decided that they needed to start measuring the return on investment of promotional activities. Comments such as ‘oh well, we’ve always done this trade show so it must bring value to the business’ were no longer cutting the mustard.

Twinings now spend an enormous amount of money on buying data and information about their different consumers and markets so that they can perform both pre and post evaluations of each promotional activity. The post evaluations include short term uplift, long term uplift and price elasticity (when price isn’t the driver of the sale – the price can be high and could continue to increase but people still buy it because of the brand equity and the relationship the consumer has with the brand). They have a dedicated promotional evaluation team and rely heavily on the feedback and sales reports from their sales teams. It really struck me how market insights and data lie at the centre of developing a more sophisticated, efficient and measurable marketing approach. I’d like to force this fact on people who believe marketing is just making a pretty advert and formatting slides!

It’s true that insights and data are vital in marketing as they can demonstrate the value of your marketing in numbers and figures (directors love this). These are the tangible measurables of marketing. With branding, and the relationship the consumer has with a product, things become much more intangible but are still important.

Intangible effects of good brand equity could be ‘I like to buy Twinings tea because it shows other people that I have good taste’ or ‘I buy Twinings because I like the look of the packaging in my cupboard’. How can you measure that?! It’s very difficult but it still impacts on sales and growth. I spoke with the Nordic Region General Manager who was actually initially employed to embed the more measured approach to the company marketing, and he is now keen for Twinings to implement a way of measuring brand equity and its effects on consumers. Good luck!

Food for thought:

Doing something is pointless if you aren’t going to measure it.

Nothing changes if nothing is measured.

Eat Wild

www.eat-wild.co.uk/

Eat Wild is an enterprise of two parts: first and foremost it is a mobile catering unit supplying premium wild meat and game at country shows and other outdoor events (including London's 2012 Olympics). Eat Wild has also opened as a small restaurant in the heart of the Cotswold town of Cirencester.

With a loyal following on Instagram of over 2,000 - we stumbled upon this little gem of a brand and went to check out the newly opened restaurant for ourselves.

The restaurant space is on a street front with a big window  - we opted for a table at the front. The service was informal and friendly which, along with the quirky decor, reflected the whole vibe of the Eat Wild dining experience. It's a small space (max. 25 people) but has lots of character with 'funky' taxidermy pieces, (the stuffed squirrel was a fave) a wall-mounted, partially dissembled piano-come-bottle-shelf and a pet fish called Brian Blessed (the result of a Facebook competition - we like!)

The menu is brief, seasonal and locally sourced - with meat sourcing rarely straying over the Gloucestershire border. In the end we went for the pulled pork burger, willie's chilli consisting of pulled venison (yum) and buttermilk chicken with rosemary fries. The food came out promptly and the presentation gave off a real 'safari' game feeling with the use of old enamel camping gear. The food was cooked well and was delicious leaving us with no room for their amazing Sundaes! (It's also worth pointing out that a Wild burger + rosemary fries meal cost £8.00 - hardly breaking the bank).

What Eat Wild have done is created an authentic product/concept that is well-delivered. The product is infused with the unique personality of the brand. The cool/hyper-styled/informal tone is consistent across all of their messaging: decor, service, website, signage and of course, their social media which makes eating at Eat Wild a really engaging experience.

The restaurant was full and buzzing by the time we took our last mouthfuls. The bill was seen to and our first experience at Eat Wild came to an end...definitely will not be our last.

Abandon your table manners and Tesco's chicken immediately - eating Wild is the way to go.

Case Study: The Londoner

First of all everyone: acquaint yourselves with the Facebook page belonging to today's case study, a blogger: The Londoner. (this is not a sponsored post. sigh.)

Here I presume to list 5 reasons why this lady has a following of nearly 54,000 people.

1. She's aimed for a big crowd:
Rosie has chosen to blog about things that appeal to a huge number of people: fashion, travel and food. These are all cultural big-hitters (anything 'lifestyle' is generally a winner) but, while not all brands have the luxury to sell such things, anyone can apply the basic wisdom to their own strategy.

What we should learn from this:
Gauge which elements of your brand message appeal to a prospective majority. Then use these as touch-points in your SM strategy. E.g. If your brand sells garden furniture, you might identify: summertime, family/social occasions and outdoor activities as your key hooks. If you sell fitness holidays you might identify: exotic locations, current fitness trends and healthy food as your hooks. See?

2. She gives a little to receive a lot:
Rosie hardly ever writes a post without an accompanying photo. This adds immediate interest to all her information thus making it easy to ingest. But vice-versa, she makes her content work for her: lots of her photos include a bait-link to her blog on her website. This exposes her monetised url to a social demographic thus increasing traffic, SEO and advertising impressions. AKA - rakin' in the chips.

What we should learn from this:
Make sure wherever possible you can add a visual element to your content. Don't just slap up a photo to tick this box though - oh no, my friend - your visual content must comply with points 1 and 5. i.e. - it must leverage popular emotive hooks (point 1) as well as appear engaged in the message it's delivering (point 5).

3. She writes amusing captions for her photos:
 Many of Rosie's posts include puns or playful references to popular culture.

What we should learn from this:
Well, this.

4.She shares photos from Instagram:
This means Rosie's Instagram account is linked to her Facebook so that, at her choosing, she can post a picture simultaneously to 2 separate social networks while directing the combined following of both to her website. 3 birds; 1 stone.

What we should learn from this:
It doesn't work all the time - people use different networks for different things - but, often, once a formula has been worked out as to what types of content can 'do the double', it is an administrative masterstroke that can save you precious minutes everyday while allowing you to drive traffic from multiple networks.

5. It always seems like she has a good time creating and posting her content:
Rosie is always having fun. It looks like it's her job to have fun - which is fun to follow.

What should we learn from this:
This is key - if SM output has a poor energy behind it, this percolates through invisible gaps in the strategy and, online, you'll be unmasked quicker than you can say 'sod this'. You have to have an achievable, realistic strategy that keeps you inspired. Your brand might not be about having fun - it might be about selling digital consultancy services (oop, guilty) - but there will always be some way you can develop a vibrant SM personality. If you employ a staff of people, your work-culture is a great place to start with an SM strategy. Create a buzz in the office and relay it on your social networks.

NB: The above tips are really helped along if you/your team also happen to be as good-looking as Rosie.