There was a time when marketing executives lived for the customers that make the business profitable, and information technology executives thought only about the technology that企业宣传片制作 makes a business hum. But all of that has changed. Whether it's applications designed to develop brand-driven employee behaviors or CRM software that provides customer-service agents with personalized data on call-center contacts, technology is having a powerful impact on the customer experience. As a result, both executives are finding themselves using technology to manage the points at which the company and the customer intersect.

In this environment, I.T. and marketing departments at many companies face similar opportunities and challenges. Senior management has come to regard both I.T. and the corporate brand as crucial business assets, and both are now at the heart of strategy discussions at the highest levels. But even as companies recognize the importance of these crucial business elements, they're struggling to figure out how to assess the strategic value and performance of each.

Technology executives are on new turf as they become involved in high-level strategic discussions about the corporate brand. Their role has expanded to include building the tools and designing and implementing the programs that monitor the effectiveness of their company's brand strategy and the metrics used to measure performance. But many still don't understand what brands are really all about.

The popular misconception is that a brand is a logo, a tagline, or an ad. In fact, these things are just tangible representations of a brand, and they fall primarily within the purview of the marketing department. Leading global companies recognize that brands are much more than these representations. Brands are a set of expectations and associations evoked from experience with a company or product-how customers think and feel about what the business or product does. They grow from the customer's entire experience with a company, its products, and its services. Everyone who drinks a Coke or drives a Cadillac knows this.

To quickly illustrate the concept, ask yourself: "What are all the ways that one of our customers or potential customers can form an impression of our brand, our company, or our products and services?" The answer highlights all of the touch points at which the brand interacts with the customer-from the sales clerk at the retail store to the customer service call center. It's clear that technology plays a significant role in the delivery, consistency, and impact of the experiences customers have with a company and its products and services, and makes it possible to manage those through the development of brand metrics.

The chart in this article lists some of the key brand metrics companies track. A clear set of strategic brand metrics lets managers understand where their efforts should be focused, what actions will lead to success, and ultimately, how they'll be judged against their efforts.

Screening the measures. The proof that a brand metric is a good one is when a manager can use it to make a real business decision and take action based on the information it provides. Five basic screens help determine whether the company has chosen the right metrics for its business strategy and situation in the market. A good way to remember them is by the acronym "SMART." They are:

Simple to use. Useful metrics are straightforward as far as the information they collect, analyze, and leverage. The key is to minimize the time necessary to measure the brand, and maximize the time spent actually using the information that the metrics provide.

Meaningful. If they're not tied directly to either corporate goals or to one or more of an organization's various customer touch points, then the metrics you measure probably won't help improve the performance of the brand or the company.

Actionable. The point of a metric is to optimize the business decisions that managers make. If a given metric doesn't help do that, it should be replaced with one that does.

Repeatable. Metrics should be reusable in terms of how data is gathered. If you deviate from the methodology you used last time you measured XYZ, you might as well start over. Brand metrics are only useful if they compare apples to apples. It's also important to use metrics that will be measured at least once or twice a year. Focus your attention on the "best of the best" as opposed to spreading investments too thin by tracking too many metrics that offer only a minimal return.

Touch points. Tailor metrics to a specific group of stakeholders. No single metric will be applicable to all stakeholders, but it's important to include at least one or two that are important to each group. Decide which metrics best measure the touch point you're interested in better understanding, relative to the specific stakeholder group being measuring against.

Brand metrics generally fall into two broad categories: strategic metrics and touch-point metrics. Strategic metrics help the team assess the effect various brand-building activities have had on the brand's overall financial performance and the company's bottom line. Touch-point metrics evaluate the brand's performance and assess brand-building initiatives. They're tied to touching a customer at any point of interaction with the brand, as when the customer visits a Web site or a portal and considers buying a product or service.

Touch-point metrics measure the intangible aspects of a brand's performance. Each has a specific purpose and is designed to gain greater insight into how the brand is influencing decision making. These are tracked by asking specific questions of a target audience. A company might track the brand-preference metric, for example, by asking such questions as: "How likely are you to continue to use brand X?" and "Given a choice, which of these three brands would you prefer?"

Invaluable customer insight. The real value of the brand-preference metric comes in following up in the market. A company that's shopping for new computers for its entire organization, for example, might respond to a survey by expressing a preference for IBM products. But when it comes time to make an actual purchase, the company might choose a different brand. The ratio between preference and conversion is a metric that delivers information about brand performance.

Brand-awareness and-recognition metrics often are used in tandem to indicate whether the entire marketing mix is effectively communicating what the brand represents. Brand recognition addresses whether potential customers recognize what the brand offers and whether they can place the brand in the right industry, product category, and competitive set. High brand awareness and recognition indicate that the company's investment levels in traditional communications could be lowered. Instead, you can reinvest your resources in other touch points.

Strategic metrics reveal the impact that brand building and management have on the overall performance of the business. Some are obvious ways of making a connection to the bottom line; others are more indirect. These metrics are typically translated into dollars and cents, or indices that can be converted into bottom-line impact. Strategic metrics include brand price premium and customer acquisition.

Brand price premium is one of the purest measures of brand-driven revenue. If a company's branded product or service sells for $100 more than the low-price provider of a similar product or service, it can be argued that the brand is driving a $100 premium per individual sale. When this premium is multiplied across all goods sold, management gains a tangible value of the brand-driven revenue.

This measure also can be useful when comparing a company with its competitors. In this case, the measurement is used to realize the brand price advantage or disadvantage relative to its competition. This information lets a company clearly develop strategic initiatives to strengthen its position.

Starting small. It's critical to the success of metrics that the company define which ones are right for a particular situation. Again, it's important to keep the number of metrics you track small and targeted-but there should be a balance of strategic and touch-point metrics that encompass the customer's entire experience, from pre-purchase and purchase to post-purchase. The strategic metrics should be grounded in the company's business metrics, which will make them more readily acceptable and relevant to senior management.

The I.T. department can have invaluable input in such strategic discussions, both in developing and monitoring new metrics, and in determining how the feedback they provide can be passed quickly to the people who can best put it to use.

Additionally, the metrics upon which the management team focuses should be chosen based on the company's existing capabilities. It's the role of business-technology executives to determine whether the technology infrastructure gives the right people access to the right information, how this information can be captured and cross-referenced with existing business data to improve the decision-making process, and how the company might best encourage the sharing of key data elements across the business to deliver more consistent end results.

Brand metrics provide a toolbox that makes it possible to quickly identify where a brand is performing or underperforming relative to the company's overall strategic goals, and to help ensure that the brand continues to drive value. With the right set of metrics in place, an organization will be poised to focus on growth, measuring the brand's performance against the strategic plan, and more effectively allocating resources for greater growth in the future.

As with other business processes and corporate initiatives, technology can play a vital role in creating the tools that measure brand performance, whether through online surveys or Internet-based research and intelligence. A strong technology platform and an I.T. champion can help realize the value of brand metrics. As equal partners at the strategy table, marketing and I.T. can work together to measure and improve business impact and success.

Condensed and translated from Optimize magazine, April 2002. Reused with permission, CMP Media LLC, Optimize magazine. All rights reserved. No further duplication authorized without express permission of the publisher.

Jeff Smith is a director in the Chicago office of Prophet, a consulting firm that helps clients better manage their brands as a strategic asset.