The primary reasons your company invests in a brand momentum is to help customers navigate the buying journey, to reduce risk and save time.

More and more companies expect suppliers to provide referenceable customers and prove that their solution is the best choice for solving their problem. In a way it’s a question of trust. Once the questions start coming down to trust and assurance, you’re in the domain of brand strategy.

Ron Ricci and John Volkman in their book, How Companies Become Unstoppable Market Forces suggest that brand momentum is crucial in any industry where products change rapidly and technology can be used to differentiate one company from its competitors. Examples of these types of industries include: banking, financial services, food and retail markets.

Brand momentum refers to the quality of a brand’s market position and its ability to consistently beat competitors. Their research over a five-year period shows that the attributes of momentum, when combined with a compelling value proposition, differentiate brands so much that they become the customer’s inevitable choice.

Use 3 Variables to Create Your Momentum Metric

The components behind brand momentum are mass, speed and direction. Let’s define each of these variables.

Mass is the relevance of a product’s value proposition, its ecosystem potential, and its category leadership.
Speed is a product company’s market agility and indicates a company’s ability to keep up with change.
Direction is what customers perceive as the sum of management vision plus brand integrity. It provides a framework for managing customer expectations. A brand’s reputation is the customers’ perceptions of how well the brand lives up to its promises, which in turn determines the brand’s integrity. Brands with management vision have a well-articulated view of the future and visionary leaders who act as evangelists.

Six Elements Impact the Momentum of Your Brand

According to the authors’ research, six elements have the greatest impact on brand momentum. These are the six and their relative weights:

1. How important is your brand promise to customers? – 28 percent

2. Do you help customers make money? – 20 percent

3. How important is the category to customers? – 18 percent

4. How well do you create/manage market changes? – 8 percent

5. Does your CEO or CIO bring the brand to life? – 19 percent

6. Do you practice what you preach? – 7 percent

Almost without exception, relevance, reputation, trust, and the ability to demonstrate market agility are factors that impact the purchasing decision. Chances are this is true for your brand and company as well. Therefore, we encourage you to validate your brand’s momentum and establish the baseline for your brand momentum metric. Learn more about how best-in-class marketers use metrics to prove and improve their value and how we can help.