The short answer
No single brand health metric reliably predicts sales on its own. The usual metrics, such as awareness, consideration, image ratings and Net Promoter Score, record what people say about a brand, and they tend to move after sales do. Measures closer to the moment of choice tell you more: salience, which is how readily the brand comes to mind when the need comes up; the associations tied to the brand and how strong they are; and whether you are winning buyers from other brands. Read associations as the leading indicator and stated scores as the lagging one, and test every metric against your own sales history.
The usual brand health metrics, and what each can tell you
Most brand trackers report a similar set of measures. Each one answers a real question. None of them, on its own, tells you what buyers will reach for next.
| Metric | What it tells you | What it can’t tell you |
|---|---|---|
| Awareness | Whether people know the name | Whether the brand comes to mind when the need comes up |
| Consideration | Whether people say they would think about buying | What will tip the choice in the moment |
| Image ratings | Which words people say fit the brand | The associations they can’t put into words |
| Net Promoter Score | Whether people say they would recommend the brand | What they will actually buy next |
| Salience | How readily the brand comes to mind at the moment of choice | Why it does, or doesn’t |
| Associations | Which memories are tied to the brand, how strongly, and whether they help or hurt | Your share of sales on its own |
| Buyers won | Whether you are winning buyers from other brands | Why they came, or why others didn’t |
Why stated measures don’t reliably predict sales
Most brand choices are instinctive. People reach for a brand in an instant, driven by memories and associations they can’t put into words. A survey can only collect the answers people are able to give, so the usual metrics describe the brand well and predict the next purchase poorly.
The evidence has been there for a long time. In an analysis of 389 real-market TV advertising tests, recall and persuasion scores showed no strong relationship to sales (Lodish and colleagues, Journal of Marketing Research, 1995).
Stated measures also move slowly. They are built to be stable, so by the time a rating drops, the change has usually reached your sales already.
“Traditional brand metrics rarely move because they’re not sensitive to the effects of marketing communications.”
Three measures that sit closer to the moment of choice
1. Salience, not awareness
Awareness asks whether people know your name. Salience asks whether your brand comes to mind first when the need comes up. Plenty of brands everyone has heard of are rarely the one people reach for.
“So awareness is that first, just the first seed, knowing the name. For it to be chosen, it needs to become that full-grown tree. It needs to stand out in the mind and have more connections in my mind than the next brand.”
2. Associations, not attributes
Attribute ratings ask people to agree that a word fits your brand. Associations are what actually comes to mind with it: the pack, a taste, a place, a person, a feeling. What matters is which associations are tied to your brand, how strongly, whether they help or hold you back, and whether they are the ones that decide choice in your category.
3. Buyers won from other brands
Keeping the buyers you have protects the base. Growth comes from winning buyers who use other brands. Track whether your growth target, the buyers you need to win, is starting to choose you, not only whether your core still rates you well.
Leading and lagging: use the two together
You don’t have to choose between a tracker and a view of associations. They answer different questions, at different times.
- Leading: the associations tied to your brand. They shift first, often before anything shows up in sales, and they show you where to act.
- Lagging: the attributes and scores people report. They confirm the change later and keep score over time.
How to test a metric against your own sales
The only way to know whether a metric predicts your sales is to check it against your own history. You don’t need a model to start.
- Line up two to three years of the metric and your sales, by quarter, and by region or channel if you have them.
- Look at the turning points. When sales rose or fell, did the metric move before, at the same time, or after?
- Split by buyer. A metric can track your core well and miss the buyers you need to win.
- Check the times you changed something in market, such as a new pack, a new campaign or a price move. A useful metric moves when the market does.
- Keep the metrics that move first. Keep the ones that only move after sales as your record of what happened, not as a guide to what will.
Where Net Promoter Score fits
Net Promoter Score asks whether people would recommend the brand. It tells you how customers feel about an experience. As a guide to brand growth it is weaker, because it measures what people say rather than what they do.
“The problem with the Net Promoter Score is that the true drivers of brand preference are mostly hidden from view and this score does nothing to reveal them.”
“It’s the richness of your brand’s associations that determines its true health, not a one-dimensional metric of consumer advocacy.”
