Proper Development of the Brand Scorecard

In any form of industry, the existence of many brands is definitely inevitable. Let us look at the computer industry, for instance, particularly at laptops or notebooks. As a customer scouting for the perfect brand notebook, you will be hearing many brand names, which include Dell, HP, Toshiba, and Compaq, just to name a few. But as a customer, you would indeed have a preference for one brand over another. This is quite expected already, especially when you start comparing the features and reputations of these brands. But what exactly constitutes this preference? What is in the particular preferred brand that makes it stand out amongst the others? Now, place yourself in the shoes of the different companies selling these brands. Wouldn't you want to know this as well? Here lies the importance of the brand scorecard.

But what exactly is a brand scorecard? If you work for, let's say, Dell computers, you are never privy to the strategies employed by HP, Toshiba, and Compaq. Thus, you and your company have your own perception of the certain features customers look for in laptops that would influence their decision-making abilities. Your own perception of this is not unfounded because there would be a lot of research poured into this endeavor as well. The underlying concept here is to determine which elements are indeed the most influential in the decision-making process of your prospective customers.

Typically, brand measurement is more often than not composed of 4 dimensions. These dimensions, in turn, are the very things that bind customers to particular brands. These dimensions include functionality, convenience or ease, personality, and price or value.

Functionality

Whatever the product may be, each brand is expected to have features that are beneficial for any customer. These functional features should be included on the brand scorecard. More importantly, how well these features are perceived by customers should be placed on the scorecard. Such perception of regular customers should be compared to those of the new ones, as well as the prospective customers.

Convenience or Ease

Customers prefer brands that they can get easily. Whatever purchasing method this may be, whether the customers get your brand at local stores or over the web, the convenience of such influence their preferences here. This particular brand asset value should be included in the scorecard as well.

Personality

It is a must for products to acquire some sort of personality. Let us take sodas, for instance. The competing brands of Coke and Pepsi understand that Coke has a different personality from that of Pepsi. This is something even the toughest of competitors have learned to accept because coining personalities to products actually increase the number of potential customers. Attaching a personality that works wonders for your brand should be placed on your brand scorecard as well.

Price or Value

Brands demand a certain price to the image that they product for themselves or for the companies to which they belong. Thus, every brand has a price or value component that is needed for it to engage in healthy competition among other brands in the market.

Knowing the aspects that fuel your brand is very important when selecting the metrics for your brand scorecard. These aspects are the very factors companies use in coming up with accurate predictions for the selling performance of their brands in the future.