Author: Tenet

  • Atlanticus Holdings

    Atlanticus Holdings

    OVERVIEW

    Atlanticus fills an important niche in financial services by serving people who have been held back by their credit scores, and who find that most of the solutions they can obtain don’t serve their needs. The company was seeking to grow by introducing the Imagine® Visa® targeted at a new, younger demographic and needed a brand that would stand out and draw attention.

    CHALLENGE

    Atlanticus needed to appeal to a young, tech-savvy audience by clearly distinguishing the Imagine® Visa® brand from competitors with similar offerings. In a marketplace where it can be very difficult to differentiate based on product features, this was a significant challenge.

    The brand also had to complement Atlanticus’ existing offerings while being flexible and adaptable, to enable Atlanticus to offer other Imagine® financial services in the future.

    HOW WE HELPED

    The client highlighted the importance of Tenet’s ability to get up to speed quickly. “The team’s attention to detail and industry knowledge were valuable to us. We didn’t have to educate them on how the market works and what we do – they already had an appreciation for how our niche worked within the financial services space.”

    Tenet’s research uncovered opportunities to set Imagine® apart by expressing forward-looking optimism and empowerment, with a strong, youthful identity that connects with the life journeys of those looking to make a fresh start and build for the future.

    Crucially, the team recognized that the brand must rely heavily on personality and visuals. While Atlanticus had important advantages including a strong technology platform, an extended financial services ecosystem and the ability to encourage credit-building behavior through incentives, these were not enough on their own.

    The brand personality and positioning were based on attributes rooted in humanity and the aspirations of Imagine® cardholders: responsible, caring, confident and fresh. Imagine® is positioned as an empowering stepping stone to financial wellness that is more than access to affordable credit.

    The visual expression employs a wide, panoramic viewpoint that suggests a connection to the customer’s whole life, using kaleidoscopic shapes, a full color spectrum and photography that is more expansive and vibrant than competitors. The instantly recognizable angled, interleaved graphic shapes provide flexibility and scalability while creating a strong link to the brand.

    OUTCOME

    Imagine® Visa® launched in early 2023 with a direct marketing campaign, a website – imaginecredit.com – and the Imagine Financial Center app. The strength and uniqueness of the visual identity is immediately apparent when users see it – something truly different in the financial services industry.

  • Corporate Branding Analytics overview

    Today’s CMOs are increasingly being asked to defend their brand investments.

    They face tough questions that proven methods and tools from Corporate Branding Analytics can help to answer:

    • What is the optimal level of spend to drive financial performance? Where can you expect to move the needle and drive the greatest return? What is too little spending? Where is the return negative?
    • When can you expect to show financial returns on communications investments?
    • How efficient is your current spend in achieving brand performance targets? Are you spending more or less than competitors to achieve brand performance targets?

    To make a strong business case, you need to be able to answer these questions in a clear and actionable way. That takes the right data to tie your actions to financial value. This will give you access to resources necessary to invest in your brand at the right level.

    This goes beyond brand valuation. You require a deeper, multi-dimensional view of brand strength, and the power of your media spending in driving business outcomes.

    That’s what Corporate Branding Analytics offers, through a suite of powerful tools that enables you to measure and optimize your brand. Since 1990, we’ve set the standard for reliable, historical data and insights that help you predict future outcomes with confidence.

  • Return on Communications Investment

    Are your brand investments delivering the hard financial results that stakeholders expect? Your leadership depends on you to develop a business case that your colleagues can believe in. For CMOs, the need for consistent measurement has never been greater.

    Our analysis enables your management team to answer key questions around both marketing spend effectiveness and media efficiency. You can harness the power of precise data to build a consistent measurement program, benchmarking against leaders in your sector and companies competing for your audience.

    Measuring marketing spend effectiveness

    To foster a deep understanding of return on paid-media, our analysis ties brand investments to hard financial metrics, including your brand’s monetary contribution as a percentage of market capitalization. These same metrics allow you to measure and prove returns over time – vital insight that keeps your business strategy on course.

    Predicting outcomes

    Our Return On Communications Investment (ROCI) analysis offers a wealth of actionable information. How much you need to spend to achieve a breakthrough in brand value and financial results. What spend level is too little, generating a negative return. And finally, the vitally important point of diminishing returns.

    How ROCI analysis supports decisions: marketing spend effectiveness

    A ROCI analysis can answer key questions to inform your next spending decision, such as:

    • How will a change in paid-media spend impact Brand Equity Valuation? By how much?
    • How will a shift in investment impact long-term brand health and financial performance?
    • When should you expect to see the impact of brand investments?
    • How big a budget do you need to provide a breakthrough in financial performance? What is optimal paid-media budget to maximize financial returns? Is your budget so small that it will create a negative return?
    • What is the impact of competitor spending on their brand value and financial performance? Based on competitors’ current levels, what risks do you face regarding your brand health?
    • Is creative content moving the needle?

    MediaPower Index: assessing media spend efficiency

    Our MediaPower Index provides an independent benchmark for quantifying the dollar amount of paid media each company spends to achieve a specific brand health target.

    Measuring media dollars spend to achieve a BrandPower target

    We can help you identify the right target, and measure efficiency performance over time:

    • Are you spending more or less than competitors competing for your audience’s attention? How much do you have to invest to rise above the noise and meet your brand health target?
    • Is your cost to achieve your brand health target increasing over time? Or is it going down, opening up an ideal window to spend for greatest efficiency?
    • Is there an opportunity to drown out competitors, if your cost for share of voice is much lower than theirs?
    • Where is the sweet spot for spending in your industry? How much is just right?

    Return on Communications Investment in action

  • Brand Equity Valuation

    The stakes have never been higher in choosing the right level of resources to allocate to brand investments. A solid Brand Equity Valuation case is essential to gaining leadership buy-in. It’s our mission to help you get it right. And that’s what Brand Science over subjectivity delivers.

    We believe in transparency. Our Brand Science approach is rooted in objective, quantitative market research – BrandPower – correlated to financial performance. As a result, our valuations help you understand more than just your brand ranking based on a dollar value.

    Time-tested over two decades of market research, our Brand Equity Valuation approach sets the standard, using reliable, stable data that your leadership team can trust.

    How our Brand Equity Valuation works

    Companies want greater transparency and a clear line of sight into what’s driving the value of their brand equity. Most valuation vendors utilize black-box methods.

    Our Brand Equity Valuation approach is the only methodology audited and verified by the Marketing Accounting Standards Board. Experts rate it the most reliable and accurate valuation method available.

    Our tools measure your brand’s value as both a specific dollar amount and as a percentage of market capitalization. The quarterly results provide a benchmark comparison between your brand and competitors that you define.

    Brand Equity Values in dollars vs. as a percentage of market cap

    Our Brand Equity Valuation benchmarking tools make it easy to understand your brand value relative to peers. When a brand’s contribution is lower than the industry average, our analysis can identify growth opportunities and predict return on brand investment. These examples show that Apple’s brand generates the largest dollar value. Benchmarked against tech giants, Apple also demonstrates solid performance for brand value as a percentage of market capitalization.

    Brand Equity Valuation decision support

    Our data helps you put your brand’s contribution to financial performance in context at any point in time to understand:

    • Is your brand driving greater financial value than competitors’ and Corporate Branding Analytics sector benchmarks? How much more (or less) over time? Are you improving quarter after quarter?
    • Is brand driving momentum for financial performance, presenting an ideal window to increase brand investments? How much value can be created?
    • Is decay in brand value dragging down financial results? If financials are improving, is your brand getting credit?

    Our Brand Equity Valuation methodology

    This independent measurement of brand health provides a truly objective assessment of brand value. Our methodology is completely transparent and involves no “black-box” set of judgments. Instead, we leverage reliable, stable market research, BrandPower data. With 25 years of proven research data, we can ensure consistent input to our model. This statistical model identifies the contribution of the brand and evaluates it in the context of financial data to determine brand dollar value.

    Brand Equity Valuation is expressed two ways:

    • The percent that the brand contributes to market cap tells how much value can be directly attributed to the brand. It measures the overall impact of your efforts. In turn, senior leadership can build a business case and evaluate the return-on-brand investments, in a way that is easily understood.
    • The dollar value of the brand is the brand’s value to the company as an intangible asset. This number can change day-to-day as the company’s overall enterprise value fluctuates. It is used to help senior leadership understand the brand’s asset value and is also a measure of the value that the market places on the brand.

    Brand Equity Valuation in action

  • Corporate Branding Index® by Sector

    Corporate Branding Index® by Sector

    Using BrandPower market research data, our Corporate Branding Index by Sector offers on-demand benchmarking and actionable insights.

    The index delivers instant insight into your brand’s performance relative to your sector average, as well as competitors’. You can track which brands are gaining momentum or losing ground with a single, easy-to-understand index.

    For ongoing monitoring and competitive analysis, you can also choose to build your own Corporate Branding Index with a custom benchmarking list. This includes direct competitors, partners and companies targeting your specific audience.

    The Corporate Branding Index methodology

    The Corporate Branding Index calculates the average for a sector or a custom benchmarking list. The performance of each company is displayed relative to the industry average.

  • BrandPower

    BrandPower

    The BrandPower ranking shows how you compare to the most powerful brands, and against leaders in your sector. Through a single measure of brand health that includes familiarity and favorability metrics, you have the ability to monitor your brand and how investments affect its performance over time.

    Based on BrandPower data, our Corporate Branding Index® by Sector allows you to track which brands are gaining or losing momentum, and so much more. You can also perform custom benchmarking against direct competitors, partners and “mindshare” companies vying for your audience’s attention. This gives you the most relevant insight on your brand performance.

    How BrandPower works

    To keep your finger on the pulse of your brand health and performance, our analysis measures two key metrics: familiarity and favorability. We collect responses from “opinion elites” – more than 10,000 highly influential stakeholders – on an ongoing basis. This market research data creates an objective, quantified view of your brand health in a single aggregate measure: BrandPower.

    The BrandPower 1000 Database includes 25 years of market research, which is constantly updated. This creates the most reliable set of benchmarking data available to predict your future brand performance.

    BrandPower Metrics: benchmarking on familiarity and favorability

    BrandPower pinpoints your advantages and weaknesses relative to competitors. The example chart above shows that Coca-Cola is in a good position – strong across both BrandPower dimensions. Amex is well known but should work to improve favorability, while Pepsico can benefit from increasing familiarity.

    How BrandPower supports decisions

    BrandPower research delivers on-demand market intelligence and actionable insights for your industry. To tap unexploited opportunities, it tracks changes in your brand’s favorability and familiarity versus peers, and helps you decide:

    • When does your brand have momentum and opportunity for growth? When is the brand at risk?
    • Which competitors’ brands are in decay, presenting perfect targets for a challenge?
    • What brands in your sector are gaining or losing momentum?
    • How are disruptive forces affecting industry leaders in your sector?
    • What separates brand leaders from followers in your sector?
    • Are you demonstrating brand leadership? Is your brand able to increase familiarity and favorability at the same time? Are you confronted with the “Familiarity Dilemma,” – an increase in familiarity that costs you favorability, common among industry followers?

    BrandPower methodology: audience and brand health metrics

    Our opinion elite audience is composed of business decision makers and well-educated, affluent consumers who make brand-based decisions every day as part of their business and personal lives. Our brand health metrics include:

    • Familiarity – we ask survey respondents how familiar they are with a brand. Their answers reflect their awareness beyond just the company name.
    • Favorability – we ask those whose familiarity with brands goes beyond name recognition to rate brands based on three factors: overall reputation, perception of management and investment potential.

    Corporate Branding can also conduct proprietary BrandPower research among custom audiences defined by the client. Our team carries out global research, measuring your most relevant audiences, metrics, attributes and customer experience. As a result, you can determine what drives value and impacts your brand’s health.

    BrandPower in action

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  • Harley-Davidson: #10 Most Powerful Brand of 2015

    Top 10 Most Powerful Brands of 2015

    #10 Harley-Davidson

    Harley-Davidson, one of America’s most beloved brands, fell from its 2014 #5 position to round out the Top 10 this year. The company has been working to move the customer experience needle with unexpected innovations like Project Livewire – a proof-of-concept electric motorcycle – and the introduction of smaller models. Nevertheless, Harley has been struggling in its largest market, the U.S., as motorcycle industry sales have remained flat. This, along with adverse events in 2014, took a toll. At the height of riding season last summer, the company issued a major recall of near-new motorcycles due to a front wheel locking problem – recalling 66,421 Touring and CVO Touring bikes. The recalls, along with increased competition from rivals and the aging of the company’s core baby-boomer customer base, are likely indicators of why Harley’s Familiarity and Favorability scores both decreased this year.

  • American Express: #9 Most Powerful Brand of 2015

    Top 10 Most Powerful Brands of 2015

    #9 American Express

    Despite American Express dropping one place to number nine this year, the company continues its lead as the number one financial services brand. This year, the company’s BrandPower score reached its highest level since the 2009 financial crisis. The company has made a significant shift, shredding its once-exclusive “members only” image and embracing a brand positioning that lends itself to being more inclusive and accessible to the mainstream. Its landmark holiday “Small Business Saturday” turned five this past year. Since launch, American Express has spent millions of dollars promoting the initiative – and helped to generate billions of dollars of revenue for thousands of retailers across the country, in a perfect example of how investing in customer engagement can drive business results. The company is also going after a whole new demographic, through a partnership announced this year with Walmart, AmEx launched a new product called BlueBird. Aimed at the “new middle class,” it offers a prepaid card as an alternative for consumers who don’t have a savings or checking account.

  • PepsiCo: #8 Most Powerful Brand of 2015

    Top 10 Most Powerful Brands of 2015

    #8 PepsiCo

    PepsiCo Inc., the world’s largest snack maker and second-largest beverage company, fell one place to number eight this year. A diverse portfolio of high-profile brands, including its namesake soda, Gatorade, Mountain Dew, Tropicana, Fritos, Lays, Cheetos and Quaker Oats has significantly helped the company in recent quarters. PepsiCo’s snack business is a key driver of the company’s continued success, contributing to nearly half of its net sales. The company has long championed the adoption of new technologies, digital innovation and customer engagement as consumers continue to change the way the engage with media. For example, Frito-Lay’s “Crash the Super Bowl” customer contest, launched in 2006, has been a wild success and has resulted in some of the most memorable Super Bowl ads – content co-created by the customers themselves. The contest was opened up to international consumers in 2014, generating thousands of entries.

  • Microsoft: #7 Most Powerful Brand of 2015

    Top 10 Most Powerful Brands of 2015

    #7 Microsoft

    Microsoft re-enters the Top 10 Most Powerful Brands this year, having jumped from its eleventh-place a year ago. Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s newly appointed CEO, is on the brink of successfully turning the fallen brand back into the technology powerhouse, which prospered under the leadership of Bill Gates. Since being named CEO in February 2014, Nadella has made a concerted effort to build Microsoft’s cloud and mobile business, including the introduction of new versions of its Office suite to reflect customers’ increasing preference for mobile devices over PCs. During the first quarter of 2015, the company posted an impressive triple-digit growth in its cloud services, which include its Azure cloud platform, Dynamics CRM service and Office 365 productivity suite for enterprise.