Superbrands 2004 - Brand Autopsy

Superbrands METHODOLOGY
magic and, in a way, the brand becomes
secondary to the marketer. So, it’s fair to
ask: Are these the best marketers for a particular
job, or are they best at marketing
themselves? Ries noted that marketers who
manage to get a job at a high-profile company
get noticed whether they’re good or
bad—and no matter how long they stay. On
the other hand, the trademarks that topped
Interbrand’s top 100 global brands list—
Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, GE and
Intel—aren’t associated with a super CMO,
save for Garrity, who left IBM more than
a decade ago.
Jeff Swystun, global director at Interbrand,
New York, said it’s probably better
to go with a mediocre marketer who is willing
to put ample time in at a brand than
a hotshot who flees after a year. “Rapid
switching is not good for the brand and
not good for the company,” he said. “Anyone
who’s in the role three years or less
doesn’t have time to absorb the nuances.”
Greg Welch of Spencer Stuart has a
solution: contracts. “Can you imagine how
different it would be if new marketers had
to sign a 60-month contract?” he asked.
On a grander scale, an argument
against star CMOs is an argument against
stars in general. As Martinez noted in The
Hard Road to the Softer Side, Young & Rubicam’s
team came up with the “Softer Side”
campaign. Costello basically had the sense
to use the idea, but he did not create it.
As Ries noted, marketers get a halo effect
from being around a good team.
The fact is, individuals rarely create new
ideas on their own. In the history of philosophy,
there were only three major
thinkers who appeared to do just that:
Taoist metaphysician Wang Ch’ung, Zen
mystic Bassui Tokusho and Arabic
philosopher Ibn Khaldun. All the
others came from various existing schools
and movements.
In that sense, a CMO may better be
considered a manager than a marketer. Creativity
doesn’t even make the cut among
Spencer Stuart’s list of key CMO attributes.
Instead, important traits include
adaptability, a thick skin and even a history
of overcoming some type of adversity,
whether personal or professional.
Geoffrey Frost, CMO of Motorola and
formerly of Nike, argues that the X factor
for a star marketer has more to do with leadership
than creativity. “Why are some
groups smarter than their smartest member
and others dumber than their dumbest?”
he asked. “You have to be smart enough
to know the limits of your own intelligence,
so you can magnetize that talent. It’s basic
stuff, but it’s hard to do.” B
S18 JUNE 21, 2004
A Look Behind the Numbers
The annual Superbrands report is presented
in two parts. As in past years,
marketplace analysis by Brandweek
reporters and brand rankings in 25 categories
are based on 2003 sales. The Top 2000 list
(beginning on page 70) ranks full-year media
expenditures as tallied by TNS/CMR.
Consumer perceptions of brands from
Harris Interactive’s EquiTrend® study
round out the package. This year’s report
contains even more comprehensive diagnostic
results for evaluating brand equity.
To begin, “Familiarity” replaces “Salience”
as a more sensitive measure of a consumer’s
ability to rate a brand. Respondents then
ranked brands with which they were “somewhat,”
“very” or “extremely” familiar on
their propensity to purchase that brand to
better gauge its vitality in the marketplace.
“Purchase intent has a huge correlation to
actual use, said Deanna Wert, vp-brand
and reputation strategy at Harris.
EquiTrend Study Key
Each brand was rated on the following criteria:
A sample of 24,046 consumers age 15and-over
were surveyed on 1,031 brands
using The Harris Poll (HPOL), a multimillion
member online panel of respondents
who have opted to take part in online
surveys. Interviewing was conducted from
April 23 to May 24; the survey took an average
of 28 minutes to complete.
Each respondent was asked to rate a
total of 80 brands, including 20 core
brands (rated by the total sample) and 60
randomly selected ones. Each brand
received approximately 1,200 ratings.
Brands were randomized so names did
not always appear in the same order. The
20 core brands were used to calibrate the
data using Harris Interactive’s proprietary
bias correction (TRBC) to purify the goodwill
measure and eliminate biases inherent
in the use of rating scales that can distort
results and make comparisons among subgroups
misleading.
Quality, 0-10: The cornerstone of the EquiTrend brand measurement system is the measurement
of perceived quality, where zero means “Unacceptable/poor,” 5 means “Quite acceptable”
and 10 means “Outstanding/Extraordinary.” Respondents could rate a brand using any
number in that range, or indicate that they had absolutely no opinion and could not rate it.
Familiarity, 1-5: Respondents were asked to rate familiarity with each brand on a 1 to 5
scale, where 1 means they never heard of the brand, 2 means they just know of the brand,
3 means they are somewhat familiar, 4 means they are very familiar and 5 means they are
extremely familiar with the brand.
Purchase Intent, 0-10: Conceptualized as a measure of the extent to which a consumer
intends to have a future relationship with a brand, respondents indicated their
answers using a 1-4 scale, where “1” means “never,” “2” means “not likely,” “3” means “possibly”
and “4” means “absolutely” would purchase a product brand/watch a TV channel/show.
Equity, 0-100: A brand’s equity score is determined by a calculation of Familiarity, Quality
and Purchase Intent, as a way to further our understanding of a brand’s overall strength.
Brands that have high quality, are well known and score well on purchase intent, have greater
equity than brands that are not well known, have poor perceived quality or those brands
which consumers are not interested in purchasing. The actual equation is done by indexing
Familiarity and Purchase Intent; followed by weighting the Familiarity score*, which is then
multiplied by the mean of Quality and Purchase Intent, with the result indexed on 100.
(*Familiarity weights: 10 = 1; 7.75 = 0.9; 5.5 = 0.8)
For more information on the Harris Interactive study, contact nwong@harrisinteractive.com.
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