Hello folks,
August always feels like a pause. Whether you’ve been grabbing the sunshine or just trying to keep the inbox under control, it’s a month for reflection before September ramps things up.
One thing we’ve been reflecting on lately is how you measure brand. It’s one of the most powerful levers a business has, and yet one of the hardest to prove. After more than 20 years in this game, I’ve realised there are two truths running in parallel: pride that we can point to real outcomes for the brands we’ve worked with, and frustration that there aren’t more of them.
That’s why we’ve added a new Results page to our website – a place to show the impact of brand in the real world. Some of it is financial, some cultural, some behavioural, but all of it matters.
We also dug into this on our latest podcast, where we talked about the difference between leading indicators (early signals like NPS, share of search, or sales team confidence) and lagging indicators (the big boardroom metrics like margin uplift or customer lifetime value). Both matter, but they work on very different timescales.
If you’d like a deeper dive, I’ve written a new article, Measuring Brand, that sets out our thinking
The lesson? If you’re serious about brand, don’t wait 20 years to start measuring it properly. Define what success looks like at the outset, track both the small signals and the long-term shifts, and you’ll build the belief and evidence needed for brand to hold its place in the boardroom.
Plenty to chew on while the sun’s (occasionally) shining. And as always, if measurement, clarity, or brand impact are on your mind, we’re always up for a real conversation.
Enjoy the rest of summer,
Chris
This newsletter was originally sent to our subscribers as an email. It has been adjusted for use on the site. View the original here or sign up below to receive articles like in your inbox each month.