Brand Equity Measurement
8 brand equity metrics, the Brand Equity Wheel and a brand equity tracker built on BrandVision
The Brand Equity Wheel: 8 brand equity metrics for brand health measurement and building strong brands
What is brand equity measurement?
The 8 brand equity metrics on the Brand Wheel are the foundation for all brand health and tracking programmes.
Brand equity measurement puts a number on the value a brand adds: how much people prefer it, pay for it and stay with it compared with an unbranded alternative. Vision One measures brand equity with the Brand Equity Wheel, tracking eight metrics over time and across markets through Vision One brand tracking, and combining them into one Brand Equity Score.
At Vision One, we have spent years refining the science of brand measurement to find the metrics that drive growth. They sit at the core of our BrandVision philosophy, where brand equity is the ultimate measure of brand health, because strong equity shows up as sales, market share and long-term profitability.
The Brand Equity Wheel is one of the most advanced brand evaluation tools available. It gives brand owners a clear picture of strengths, weaknesses and future opportunities, so marketing can focus on the brand equity KPIs that move performance and see where the brand is heading, not only where it is.
Brand equity metrics: the Brand Equity Wheel
The Brand Equity Wheel, or Brand Wheel, summarises the eight brand equity metrics that matter most. They sit in four themes, each colour-coded on the wheel:
- Salience = Mindshare + Magnetism
- Energy = Momentum + Brand Health
- Delight = Emotion + Brand Love
- Status = NPS + Fame
At the heart of brand health measurement is the Brand Equity Score, which combines all eight metrics into a single number you can benchmark against competitors and track wave by wave. It tells marketers and brand owners whether their brand-building is working; the eight metrics tell them why.
Get in touch for brand equity examples from your category and a walk-through of the wheel.
BrandVision – The 8 brand equity metrics you need
Running brand health or tracking studies over time lets you spot trends and act quickly. To make the research actionable, you need to measure more than awareness, which is why BrandVision is built around these eight metrics. Select a metric to see what it measures and why it matters.
Tab Contents
Awareness & Mindshare
The battle for the mind
Brand awareness is not a single number. Prompted awareness, recognition and recall each tell you something different, and together we call them Mindshare: how much of the customer’s mind your brand occupies.
Behavioural economics shows why it matters: availability bias means the brand that comes to mind first wins the choice. Mindshare is the first metric in the Salience theme.
Brand Magnetism
Awareness alone is pointless if your brand doesn’t possess Brand Magnetism.
Part of the Brand Funnel, Magnetism refers to the attraction your brand has with the target market.
There are two aspects to brand Magnetism. Firstly, the strength of the brand’s appeal and interest. Secondly, it is about the segments and groups interested in the brand. Understanding who is and isn’t interested in your brand is the first step in creating a strong marketing and brand strategy.
Brand Magnetism is the holy grail for many brands as it is often associated with some of the best and most iconic brands in history.
Brand Fame
What is Brand Fame?
Brand Fame (also known as brand leadership) is one of the key metrics that indicate whether or not your brand has a USP and is seen by consumers as a ‘Leader’, ‘Different’ or ‘Characterless’.
There are two very important aspects to Brand Fame: Uniqueness & Leadership. Brands that lack either of these attributes tend to struggle, with little to set them apart from competitors.
A great example of this is people’s desire to own the Apple brand. The high levels of Fame (Distinctiveness and Leadership) correlate strongly with Brand Love and Consumer Loyalty, which have ultimately helped drive Apple’s dominant position in the market.
Brand Love
The Power of Love
The concept of Love in brand relationships has been receiving immense and escalating attention. It is considered by many experts to be the essential ingredient for capitalising in today’s new order.
Brand Love underpins the consumer-brand relationship. It’s not an emotional or fluffy metric, but rather the holy trinity of brand metrics, combining three powerful metrics: Relevance, Need, and Trust.
Evaluation of brand tracking data has taught us, time and time again, that Relevance is arguably the most important metric of all – and is highly correlated with consumer behaviour.
Brand Health
8 Secrets to a Healthy Brand Image
- The 8 Essential brand image metrics are:
- Ethical – Are you seen to be doing the right things?
- Brand Identity -Does your Brand identity have Clarity?
- Brand Noise – Is your brand grabbing people’s Attention?
- Newsworthy – Is your brand worth talking about?
- Outstanding – Do you offer exceptional Quality or Value?
- Variety – Is your brand flexible and has multiple uses or benefits?
- Accessible – Is your brand Readily Available and Convenient?
- On Trend – Is your brand Topical & Current?
Brand Momentum
Discover the power of Brand Velocity.
Brand Velocity is part of Brand Momentum theory and refers to the growth potential for your brand and its likely future trajectory. Velocity measures the extent to which your brand is seen to be growing or declining.
Brand Momentum is a KPI driven by your marketing investment, product availability, brand image and your brand proposition and positioning.
Brand Momentum is a better indicator of growth than virtually any other consumer metric. Its role is far more important than the highly regarded Net Promoter Score because it is a better predictor of growth and growth potential than any other brand metric.
Net Promoter Score
The Recommended Metric
Net Promoter Score was initially developed in 2003 by Bain & Co to help companies earn customer loyalty and inspire employees.
NPS is an important part of consumer research for many companies as it is a measure used to gauge customer loyalty, satisfaction, and enthusiasm for a company
Further research by Nielsen has supported the metric, confirming that word of mouth is the most influential factor in consumers’ purchasing decisions.
Brand Emotion
Creating Emotion and Strong Relationships and Connections
Branding is much more than just a brand name, logo or strap line. Successful branding is far deeper than that.
The best and strongest brands form an emotional relationship with their customers. We call this Emotional Branding, and, along with Brand Love, it forms a pivotal part of our BrandVision approach and our Brand Equity Wheel.
Developed by Robert Plutchik, the Wheel of Emotion helps to explain how emotions work.
Brand equity vs brand health: what is the difference?
Brand health is one of the eight metrics; brand equity is the whole wheel. The two are often used interchangeably, which is how boards end up arguing over the wrong number.
Brand equity
The overall value the brand adds, measured as the Brand Equity Score across all eight metrics. It is the number to report to the board and the one that tracks with sales and market share.
Brand health
The eight image attributes that describe how the brand is seen: identity, noise, newsworthy, outstanding, variety, accessible, on trend and ethical. Health explains why equity rises or falls.
Brand tracking
The programme that measures both over time. Brand equity tracking is the survey, the waves and the benchmarks; brand health metrics are read inside it, not instead of it.
Short version: equity is the score, health is the diagnosis, tracking is how you get both.
How do you track brand equity over time? The brand equity tracker
A brand equity tracker measures eight metrics among a representative sample of your market, wave by wave, and tracks movement against competitors and your own activity.
BrandVision is the framework; the tracker is built around your category, your competitors and the decisions you need to make.
One score. Eight reasons.
Set the baseline
A first wave measures all eight metrics and the Brand Equity Score for your brand and the competitors that matter, before the next campaign goes live.
Define the sample and markets
A representative sample of your target market, UK or multi-country, with the segments you need to read separately.
Choose the wave frequency
Monthly, quarterly or annual waves, matched to your media spend and the speed of the category; continuous tracking where spend is high.
Benchmark against competitors
Every metric is read relative to the category, so a flat score in a falling market is a win and a rising score in a rising market is table stakes.
Read the movement, not the number
Momentum and brand health explain changes before they reach awareness and sales; social listening fills the gaps between waves.
Turn brand equity insights into decisions
A dashboard for the team plus a senior researcher’s read of each wave: what moved, why, and what to do next.
Which brand equity metric should you start with?
Start with the decision you need to make, then pick the metric that answers it. The wheel is read as a whole, but most briefs begin with one of these:
- Nobody knows us: start with Mindshare and Magnetism, the Salience metrics
- Growth has stalled: Brand Momentum is the early warning and Brand Health is the diagnosis
- Customers do not come back: NPS, Brand Love and brand loyalty
- The brand feels generic: Brand Fame (uniqueness and leadership) and Emotion
Brand equity tracking with Vision One starts from £8,000, quotes are fixed before work begins. Download the brand tracking guide for the questions, sample sizes and reporting to expect.
Brand equity tracking by sector: travel, technology, telecom, government and media
The same eight metrics, tuned to the brands and audiences in your market.
Travel brand equity tracking
Tour operators, airlines, attractions and destinations benchmarked against the category.
Technology brand equity tracking
Consumer and B2B technology brands, with decision-maker samples where the buyer is a business.
Telecom & media brand equity tracking
Fast-moving categories with heavy media spend, where monthly waves catch the effect of each campaign.
Public sector brand equity tracking
Trust, awareness and reputation among citizens and stakeholders, run with our social research team.
Financial services brand equity tracking
Regulated categories where trust and ethics carry more of the score, with fieldwork run to ISO 20252.
Latest client testimonials
Allianz (Insurance and Asset Management)
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Salcombe Gin (Alcoholic Drinks)
Vision One were excellent to work with throughout the process. They understood our brand and its needs and took on feedback to make changes where necessary. We’re very happy with the level of insight gained.
Silentnight (Beds, Mattresses and Sleep)
Vision One’s BrandVision has given us new and powerful insights – helping us understand our brand health and shape our strategic decisions going forward.
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Q&A Vision One’s brand research solutions
Brand equity measurement quantifies the value a brand adds beyond its product: the extra preference, price and loyalty it earns compared with an unbranded alternative. Vision One measures it through a survey of the market using the eight Brand Equity Wheel metrics, combined into a Brand Equity Score that is benchmarked against competitors and tracked over time.
The eight brand equity metrics on the Brand Equity Wheel: Mindshare and Magnetism (Salience), Momentum and Brand Health (Energy), Emotion and Brand Love (Delight), and Net Promoter Score and Fame (Status). Each is measured by survey among the target market, and the eight combine into one Brand Equity Score for the brand and each competitor.
Brand equity tracking repeats the same survey in waves, monthly, quarterly or annually, among a representative sample of the market. Each wave reports the eight metrics and the Brand Equity Score for your brand and its competitors, so movement is read against the category rather than in isolation. Results go to a dashboard with a researcher’s commentary on what changed and why.
Brand equity is the total value the brand adds, summarised in the Brand Equity Score across all eight metrics. Brand health is one of those metrics: the eight image attributes that describe how the brand is seen. Health explains why equity moves; equity is the number that tracks with sales and market share. A tracker measures both.
Brand equity is the difference a name makes. Two identical products, one branded and one not: the extra people will pay, prefer and stay loyal for the branded one is its equity. It is built from awareness, attraction, image, emotion, recommendation and momentum, which is why it needs more than one metric to measure.
Measure it among the market, not only your customers, with a consistent questionnaire covering the eight metrics, then combine them into a single score. Benchmark against competitors, repeat in waves and read the movement. Financial methods value the brand as an asset; consumer-based measurement like BrandVision explains what drives that value and how to grow it.
The Brand Wheel, or Brand Equity Wheel, is Vision One’s model of the eight brand equity metrics arranged in four colour-coded themes: Salience, Energy, Delight and Status. It is the structure behind every BrandVision tracker: each segment is measured, the segments combine into the Brand Equity Score, and the wheel shows at a glance where a brand is strong and where it is exposed.
BrandVision is our brand equity measurement system: the Brand Equity Wheel as the model, an online survey among a representative sample as the tool, and a dashboard for reporting. It is tailored rather than off-the-shelf, so the competitors, segments and questions fit your category. Financial brand valuation models sit alongside it when a brand needs an asset value.
A brand equity survey asks a representative sample of your market about awareness, appeal, image, emotion, recommendation and momentum for your brand and its competitors. Sample size depends on how many brands and segments you need to read reliably; most UK trackers run several hundred interviews per wave, with larger samples where regional or segment reads matter.
A brand equity tracker is the direct answer: it shows whether your branding has moved awareness, appeal, image and momentum against competitors. Vision One runs BrandVision trackers for UK brands from London, Liverpool and Leeds, from £8,000 quoted fixed, and offers a free brand health check to see where you stand before you commit.
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