Viral, Brand Tracking Course - Get free access here

So the last post where I announced this course was live, just before getting on stage at SXSW seems to have been so popular its broken LinkedIn. I literally ran out of connection requests for the ~500 people who wanted the details.

So here's what you need if you've ever wanted to know how brand tracking works. It will cost you $0 and 28 minutes of your time.

NOTE - This is a shortened version of the bi-monthly private newsletter I send members via hybrency.substack.com . Register to access the latest, full issues when they drop including all the juicy/spicy extras that I can't publish here.

The Problem with Brand

1 - No one can define brand - at least with any consistency. In a previous newsletter issue we helped with the definition.

But confusions abound when it comes to the derivatives of 'brand' too.

For example - last year we explored what a ‘brand campaign’ is or isn’t. A viral tweet which became a viral 5-part article series published by BrandingMag. The final piece of which (part 5.3) has just been published (Oct 17). Check this article out, especially if you believe Steve is telling the truth in this video (below). And even more so if you believe Apple's Think Different brand campaign was a success.

2 - The other problem with brand is how to measure it. Sales, direct response effects and digital metrics are quite easy to measure. We get a lot of these for free. But when it comes to intangibles such as brand - no standard exists. Everyone does it differently. Meaning there's a lot of wiggle room to misdirect or hide if you want to.

The Solution

The antidote to buying brand fluff is simple - robust measurement. But research we did a few months back found only a handful actually understood how it's done. Even those working in brand didn’t know brand measurement worked underneath. Likely because it's something that's almost always outsourced. Ironically, this means we're all trusting the brand of the brand measurement firm.

That’s not to say outsourcing research is a bad idea. It’s actually quite sound. But without any knowledge of brand measurement fundamentals, there's no way we can assess quality. And we'll overlook how very small details in the way the survey is designed and executed can completely compromize the integrity of the results. Things like category definitions, the integrity of the sample and survey design are so important to get right if you're concerned about accuracy.

If you don't want to get taken by a ride by your vendor or risk looking like another fluffy marketer in SLT meetings - you need to up your game. Here's an example.

Brand Tracking Fail

The founder of a brand tracking firm (I can't make this up) recently posted about Liquid Death's inability to grow their brand. All the while failing to understand the critical importance of the first step of the brand tracking process (category definitions). In this case they wrongly assume Liquid Death competes primarily within the bottled water category. When in real life, they are closer to a brand like La Croix than FIJI. And started as a healthy substitute to energy drinks by sponsoring extreme sport athletes.*

And here's proof. When there's a buying frenzy at the supermarket and people stock up on water, check out check out which brands of 'bottled water' they end up leaving on the shelf.

And that’s before we get to the dubious brand metrics being used in this tracker either. Metrics which appear to be taken straight out of the footnotes of one of those marketing celebrity brand management courses.

*Category hacking is the primary way vendors manipulate results to make companies' brands look better or worse than they actually are.

This course

Contrary to popular perception - brand measurement is not an elusive beast that’s particularly difficult or expensive to measure. Although many will argue it is and leverage your ignorance to their advantage.

The human animal always wants to get around something like objective measurement. Because if you can get around objective measurement, you can tell a story. And if the story you tell is told to someone who knows less than you do - you can use that as the basis to transfer money from that person to you. - Eric Weinstein

This course is free. And if you have ~$3-10k of budget to cover the survey execution costs, you'll be able measure and track your own brand quite easily.

Questions Answered in the Course

1 - What brand metrics should we be measuring?

2 - How do we go about measuring them?

3 - How can rely on the accuracy of the data we receive back?

4 - How do we know these brand metrics have a strong relationship to wider business goals like earnings?

In the free course you’ll get

• A 28min video which gives you a detailed overview of how it all works
• 1 x Google Sheet which includes raw data and a formula page with graphs so you can see how it all works
• 1 x Google Doc brand tracking survey template which you can take and modify for your own needs
• 1 x Google Doc brand tracking survey example contextualized for an enterprise sales CRM brand based in the US so you can see exactly how the survey would look.
• A certificate of completion that you can easily add to your LinkedIn profile

Start this course right now with just an email address

In the paid version you’ll also get

• A detailed guide about category definitions and the CEP discovery process
• Information so you can tell the good brand metrics from the less-good ones. Correlation vs causation. Legacy and popular metrics vs those with more empirical weight
• Commentary on the nature of the brand measurement vendor market i.e. the objective/independent side vs the politically sellable side. Including all the commercial conflicts at play and vendor supply chain dynamics. See Ross Sergeant 's story below as an example of what goes on.

• Detail about all the vendors you can use to DIY or outsource or do a hybrid solution. We’ll tell you the ones all these famous brand tracking firms use so you could cut out the middlemen if you wish or build your own brand tracking solution.
• An extended list of pros and cons to each option above (DIY, outsource, hybrid)
• How to present brand tracking results to more discerning financially literate executives without looking like just another brand fluff marketer.

For this paid version get in contact with me directly because it depends which country/tax region you are in.

Spread the word

This course took me weeks to research so it hit the right middle point. It was the result of many discussions with very experienced brand measurement people from all around the world. I tried to keep it as simple as possible. And it's intended to be a short crash course suitable those with any level of knowledge.

This is a quick MVP shoot which I did, so the production value is LoFi, and I'm keen to hear your critical feedback (unlike other precious folk in the industry - I can take it without feeling the need to block or delete your criticism).

Make sure your colleagues and friends don't miss out by giving them a hollar in the comments too.

Happy brand tracking!