Trying to explain the ROI of brand awareness to someone who doesn’t work in brand is a task most brand managers hate. And we’ve all been there – waffling our way through the intangible benefits of what it means to have a good brand.

With an ever-increasing focus on the ROI of marketing, explaining how brand awareness translates into sales isn’t always easy – but the truth is, brand awareness does have an ROI, and its importance can’t be understated. You only need to look at the demise of Brandless to see that. 

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What is Brand Awareness ROI?

It might seem obvious, but no one will buy from a business if they don’t know it exists. Your solution might be the best on the market. Your product might be life-changing. But all of that stuff comes second to someone actually being aware of you in the first place.

Surely the solution is simple – get your brand out there. Rank first in Google for all those important keywords, plaster OOH campaigns everywhere you can think of, and get your product a coveted spot on the shelves of big retailers.

Except it isn’t really that simple. The truth is, people can consume what you produce without ever really noticing it was you who produced it. Just because someone downloaded your content and gave it a read doesn’t mean they’ll remember your brand logo was in every corner. Same goes for sponsored events and social media posts.

There’s more to brand integrity than being everywhere at once, because there’s more to branding than just that. We know that we should aim for 6-8 marketing touches before someone will actually engage with a message, but that’s not all – for a brand to really set itself apart, they need to be telling great stories with their campaigns, backed by a strong brand purpose, and building brand equity in crowded markets. 

Brand awareness makes other acquisition campaigns easier

One of the main reasons why it’s so hard to track ROI back to brand awareness, apart from the fact that ‘brand’ itself is pretty difficult to get a handle on, is because brand awareness on its own is not usually the thing that pushes someone to convert. It’s more likely the thing that tips it – a sneaky helper that assists all other acquisition campaigns without ever really hogging the limelight. It’s for that reason that branding spend can’t be viewed in a vacuum. 

When people are aware of your brand (and associate with it positively), it gives all of your other marketing and brand efforts a boost. We tend to default to trust when it comes to brands we recognise.

If someone has heard of you, and thinks you’re good at what you do (or just ‘good’ in general), they’re far more likely to click that ad, download that content, and engage with your brand. It’s no secret that building brand awareness is a long game – it’s all about building associations. Which leads nicely into the next point:

Not all press is good press

It’s likely that more people have heard of DTC luggage brand ‘Away’ since this report about its toxic work environment dropped – but that’s not really a good thing. 

Negative press, a failed product launch, and unethical business practices may all add up to higher brand awareness – but when it’s for all the wrong reasons, that brand awareness doesn’t work in your favour.

More than ever, consumers want more than a brand that just ‘does the job’. According to our research, 70.6% of consumers would stop buying from a brand if they discovered it didn’t operate in a way that matched their personal values. Brands large and small are using brand purpose to boost their brand awareness and their brand building ROI; plucky startups spring up, designed to give back to the world around them, and long-standing corporations are pivoting to place brand purpose at the centre of what they do.

The message is clear: good press is a big boost for the ROI of your brand spend. However – without brand awareness, that good press doesn’t really matter. In the end, it’s a bit of a Catch 22 – a good brand awareness strategy feeds good press, and good press feeds brand awareness. 

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Familiarity is still really important

The dynamics of almost every industry on earth are shifting all the time. Whatever niche you’re in, the competitive landscape will always be changing – and that’s because people are always coming up with innovative ways to solve problems. Consumers today are faced with so many choices, it’s almost overwhelming.

A recognisable brand name cuts through the noise – and the effect is even more pronounced the more complicated the problem gets. If someone is craving a fizzy drink, maybe they go for a Coca Cola, a Sprite, or a Mountain Dew. If someone needs something delivered quickly, maybe they go to Amazon or eBay. If someone wants to track their brand health in a really specific market, maybe they go to Attest. 

It’s not all doom and gloom for the brands just making their start in the world, though – the fight for brand equity may be tough, but as long as the emphasis is placed on fostering loyalty and meaningful connections with consumers, brand awareness and positive associations will be built over time.

Can brand awareness be a KPI?

Companies often fall short when focusing exclusively on lead generation campaigns and metrics as this can be quite a short-term play. If you follow the rule of thumb that it takes, on average, seven interactions with someone until their purchase intent is realised, then brand building efforts are essential for business growth.

Encouraging engagement with your brand can also invoke customer loyalty and the longevity of your relationships with existing customers, which can protect businesses from losing revenue overtime.

Brand awareness and brand equity also have impacts on other success metrics and KPIs for businesses. So when analysing the ROI on all marketing activity, it is essential to have brand building activity analysed alongside, to help attribute certain rises or pitfalls in customer acquisition or sales activity to any branding efforts. This way you can truly know what is working, and what is not, so you can inform future marketing strategies.

So, make brand awareness one of your business KPIs and build real marketing tactics around it.

Check what’s working with brand tracking

Measuring brand and attributing to sales volume directly can be a challenge for many marketers. How do you know if your brand efforts are translating into awareness, and if that brand awareness is translating into ROI? Some aspects of brand tracking may be intangible, but there are some crucial brand health metrics that you can keep track of.

Download our free Beginner’s Guide to Brand Tracking to find out how to do it all yourself, with our in-house research experts on-hand to support you through the journey. No need for an overpriced consultancy. 

Frequently asked questions about brand awareness

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Not at the flick of a switch. More like the gradual dimming over a period of a couple of years.

Social media listening and monitoring used to shine a bright light on brands and consumers’ conversations about them – but now we’re left in the dark.

Why?

Social listening can’t reach dark social

Over the last few years, with the rise of Whatsapp, Snapchat and other one-on-one or small group messaging services (not to mention the resurgence of email), ‘dark social’ has stolen the limelight from social media data.

So much so, that the majority of conversations now take place away from the original ‘Big 3’ social networks of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. And consumer behaviour has changed too, with around 84% of sharing activity now coming from dark social. 

In 2020, Whatsapp alone has 1.5 billion active users across 180 countries, sending billions of messages every single day. 

Yet you can’t track any of those conversations with traditional social media listening tools. 

Brandwatch doesn’t track dark social traffic.

Brandwatch

The reality is that dark social, email, and offline are where the majority of consumer discussions about your brand actually happen. If you’re only focusing on the traditional ‘Big 3’ social networks, you’re quite literally in the dark about what’s actually being said. 

You might be wondering: ‘If dark social is such an issue, then why do marketers still rely on social listening data to measure their brand?’ Great question! The truth is, the vast majority of marketers are unaware of the impact dark social has on their data. A survey of over 1,200 brand marketers showed that only 4% of them listed the growing prevalence of dark social in their top three biggest challenges. 

And dark social is only part of the problem. 

Nobody really knows what the hell to do about it [dark social].

eConsultancy

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Why social listening is a terrible way to measure your brand:

So we know that social media listening tools – and the brands that have depended upon them – can only listen in on a small sliver of what people are really talking about. But what about the stuff they do manage to listen in on? The truth is that even the data these tools can pick up is a less-than-optimal measure of what consumers think of your brand.

Social media data is highly curated

Generally, when consumers are on social media, they’re only putting out a highly curated (read: inaccurate) picture of themselves.

Consider the behaviour you observe with your own friends and colleagues. Do you think their social feeds represent every aspect of their lives? Do you think they talk about the same things on their public profiles that they do in a private, one-on-one conversation?

Studies back up the idea that we’re not always wholly truthful online. For example, a survey of 5,000 students conducted by Digital Awareness UK found that 60% of them believed their friends show a “fake version” of themselves on social media.

Gen Z and Millennials, in particular, are prone to curating their online image in an effort to be perceived as the best possible version of themselves. But it’s not only societal demands that cause them to filter what they share – today’s young people have wised up to the deal they make with social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. They know their data is sold and mined by brands, and that it’s publicly available to view. With that in mind, they’re prone to curate the information they share. 

Their real views and conversations appear more often in their personal one-on-one messaging apps, like Whatsapp.

How are brands and social media listening tools responding? Well, they’re not.

Consumers are savvier than we give them credit for 

With increased knowledge about how our online data is used comes an increased will to hide it. Consumers are increasingly savvy, and many are savvy enough to block what they don’t want certain brands (or the government) to see and monitor.

This is especially true for older generations. While Gen Z and Millennials are more likely to see the benefits in companies using their data for personalisation, Gen X and Boomers are more likely to find it creepy.

Tools that are designed to make online activity more private have seen a boom in popularity – from entirely private browsers, like Tor, to VPN services. 

Social data is biased

Think back to the last time you mentioned a brand on social media. Was it to give an in-depth critique of a product or service, with Net promoter scores (NPS) attached, and a run-down of all the ways they could improve? The answer is probably no. 

Brand mentions on major social networks are often incredibly positive or super negative because the people getting involved want to praise or disparage the brand in question (no judgment, we’ve all been on a Twitter rant). The middle-ground becomes a sort of grey area, and the extremes become overly emphasised. 

The people who praise or air their grievances with brands on social media tend to have a strong point of view. They’re not the silent majority that makes up the bulk of your revenue – and therefore definitely not the only signals you want to base business decisions on.

This is why social media listening and monitoring is a terrible way to measure brand.

It provides you with only a tiny fraction of the conversations taking place about your brand, from a very small, biased sample of consumers. 

It can’t give you a true, accurate picture of your brand’s strengths or weaknesses, general awareness, consumer sentiment, or how it is trending. And for all the same reasons, it won’t provide you with accurate competitor intelligence.

What’s the solution?

Social listening isn’t all bad! The problem is that it doesn’t give you an accurate snapshot of your brand health in isolation. Having a diverse range of methodologies and tools at the ready will always give you a more nuanced, more accurate view of what you can do to move the needle for your brand.

The good news is, that it’s possible to accurately measure your key brand health metrics, learn your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses, understand shifting market dynamics, and see patterns in consumer trends in one place. Tracking brand health is nowhere near as hard as it used to be. 

Want to get started with brand tracking, monitor your brand’s health, and understand what consumers are really saying about you? Download your copy of our guide to bringing brand tracking in-house and start getting the data that will revolutionise your growth strategy, without an expensive research agency:

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It’s this kind of travel experience that Virgin Atlantic was built to upturn, spearheaded today by Senior Vice President of Marketing, Claire Cronin. We sat down with Claire to discuss Virgin Atlantic’ disruptive purpose, and how she translates that brand purpose into action.

“Travel was a turgid experience; you were strapped to your seat, stuck in what was effectively a tin can, for 8 or 10 hours at a time,” says Claire, talking about the experience that inspired Richard Branson to found the company back in 1984. Their enigmatic leader took his overarching commercial philosophy that had already proved successful in the music industry, “Disrupt business for good”, and applied it to the airline sector. This umbrella still provides purpose to all Virgin brands, and serves as a criteria that the federation of brands must hit. 

“Every single Virgin company has to be able to demonstrate how they are disrupting business for good in their sector.” But how Claire chooses to translate this into the airline space sits firmly in her own hands. It’s that challenge that first attracted Claire to the Virgin Atlantic brand. 

Completing the graduate scheme at a large UK bank she was asked by her then-boss what her dream job would be. Without skipping a beat, she declared, “Easy, Chief Marketing Officer at Virgin Atlantic!”, followed by a raised eyebrow and a rephrased question, “Claire, what would be your dream job here?”, which proved to be more difficult to answer. 

“I thought Virgin Atlantic’s product experience exactly matched up to their customer promise. When those two things are absolutely aligned, that is the nirvana of brands.” Recognising the restless spirit of the whole family of brands, Claire was set on a future at Virgin. “The company’s purpose is so ingrained in the DNA, and it has real longevity across generations. We’re constantly creating new companies; with Hyperloop (600 mph transportation that can only be described as the train of the future), and Galactic (bringing space travel to the masses). We’re looking at new ways to travel in particular, which is very exciting and a real passion of mine.”

How the Virgin master purpose translates for Virgin Atlantic is in a revolutionary three year strategy with a suitably exciting name to match, “Velocity”. At its heart, Velocity aims to cement Virgin Atlantic as the most-loved travel company for consumers of all walks of life. To do this, Virgin Atlantic needs a purpose to aim for all of its own, “Embrace the human spirit and let it fly”. 

Every single Virgin company has to be able to demonstrate how they are disrupting business for good in their sector.

“We want to be able to encourage people to travel the world, but to feel OK about it from an environmental standpoint.” And so, one of the central pillars of the Velocity strategy is to demonstrate that Virgin Atlantic is a socially caring company. 

“Over the next 3 years, we’re investing £1.3 bn in our fleet, so that we can put the most fuel-efficient aircraft into the sky and cut our emissions by 30%. We know our customers care about the environment and their impact on society, so that extends to the decisions we make about what products are on board. For example, we’re just about to change out our coffee supply, to a company called Change Please, set up by Cemal Ezel. His vision was to empower the homeless community by training them to become baristas. Cemal’s business idea was originally funded by Virgin Start-Up and after first showcasing the product at key customer events, it was a no-brainer to put the product on our planes. Our customers love it.”

All of this is being done with consumers firmly in mind. “Millennials in particular are very socially conscious, they’re the most environmentally-minded generation of all time. What we also see is that this demographic then has an influence on their parents and grandparents. They’re infiltrating attitudes outside their own generation. The Baby Boomers grew up with Richard [Branson], we now need to let the Boomer’s children, and their children feel that Virgin is a relevant brand.”

Expanding the relevancy of the Virgin brand is front of mind for Claire this year. With a recently-purchased 30% stake in FlyBe, the traditionally long-haul company are gifted the opportunity to reach both regional communities in the UK, and more of the business-travel market which is increasingly made up of Millennials. 

While Velocity is a strategy to achieve the brand purpose of embracing the human spirit and letting it fly, the partnerships it encompasses offer a much bigger field for this to play out on. “We are a founding member of an expanded joint venture with Air France, KLM and Delta. Between us we represent 24% of the transatlantic capacity in the marketplace. All four airlines are like-minded carriers – united by a pioneering spirit – but we wanted to use our “disrupt business for good” purpose to help influence them to change some of their suppliers. Delta have just announced they’re going to be changing out their onboard headphones with a company called LSTN; for everyone who purchases a pair of these headphones, LSTN will pay for a hearing test for someone in need in the US.”

While Virgin Atlantic are rallying to introduce socially-minded purpose into the airline industry, Claire credits Toms with introducing this model for brands. “Toms shoes have really blazed a trail with their promise: “Buy a pair of our shoes and we’ll put a pair of shoes onto the feet of children in need”. That has become a model, where a brand can be stylish but also caring, and it’s a model that has started to play out in lots of different sectors.”

When it comes to defining the brand’s purpose, Virgin’s people have a large part to play. Not only does their purpose, “Embrace the human spirit and let it fly”, inform customer-facing strategies like Velocity, it serves to open Virgin Atlantic up as an employer. 

“We recognise increasingly that we’ve got a greater role to play in driving-up diversity, particularly in aviation careers. We’ve signed the Aviation Charter to help increase the number of women going into aviation careers, but we also have a stated public commitment to increase our level of BAME representation amongst our employees, to 12% in order to represent the UK norms.”

“It’s just a societal norm that lots of black people don’t learn to swim when they’re younger. So, as an organisation, we’ve said we’ll fund swimming lessons for any candidates, so that it doesn’t become a barrier to entry to joining our cabin crew.” Virgin Atlantic are taking further steps to close the “dream gap” earlier on in the lives of their future employees, too, “There’s a gap in aviation; lots of young girls and children from ethnic minorities don’t see people in (what could be) the careers of their choice, so it automatically limits their field. By the age of five research has shown that children have already started to frame what are boys’ and girls’ jobs, so we have to go in at a really early age. We’re currently partnering with the WE Foundation, to actually go into schools where we have headquarter premises, so we can encourage school children to take up STEM sciences.”

Enabling their employees to thrive is central to Virgin Atlantic’s purpose. In fact, Claire believes the best way to build their brand purpose is from the ground up. “You don’t want colleagues to read a verbatim statement and spit it back at you, you need them to be able to put into their own words what the purpose looks like in their day to day role. We’ve focussed on this, so it really feels authentic, something they understand and can put into action. Core to the idea of embracing the human spirit is our Be Yourself initiative which encourages people to bring their whole self to work, and that’s why none of our service interactions are scripted.”

When you craft your purpose and values with your people, they embrace it and take it to heart.

This strategy informs the way Virgin Atlantic track the reception of their purpose. “We track our employees understanding of the purpose. We embed it in our engagement survey, asking “Do you understand what our purpose is?”, “Do you understand what our values are?” and “Do you understand how you can translate them into your core job?”. Within the first year of launching our Purpose and Values in Virgin Holidays, we achieved scores in the high 80s to all three questions. When you craft your purpose and values with your people, they embrace it and take it to heart.” 

Authenticity is Claire’s number one priority for the purpose in her brand, and her top piece of advice for any marketeer working on their own brand’s purpose. Recognising that marketing communications are only one home for brand purpose, Claire notes that, “It has to be something that can genuinely live in enduring ways throughout your organisation and all your touchpoints. It has to be something that can be manifested in your product offering. It has to drive the way you create new products and take them to market. For us, and our embracing of the human spirit, it’s that the minute you walk into the clubhouse or onto the plane our people treat you as an individual. And, internally, it’s how we empower our people.”

Back in the 1980s air travel was stuffy and elite, while today it suffers from overcrowding and depersonalisation. In 1984 Virgin Atlantic launched with a rebel mentality and quickly became famous for being a “party in the sky” thanks to the onboard bar. Fast forward to 2019 and their new A350 has replaced the bar with a more flexible Loft space, where customers can work, dine or watch a movie together. “The new GenZ consumers drink less and are more focused on their total wellbeing, so we needed to cater for the new trends.Throughout this transformation, and continuing into the future with multiple carrier partners and new like-minded suppliers in tow, Virgin Atlantic’s brand purpose, to “Embrace the human spirit and let it fly” is well and truly disrupting the airline industry for good.

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