Brand health refers to the overall strength of your brand’s presence and reputation in the market – it encompasses how well your brand is known, perceived, and trusted by consumers. In practical terms, a healthy brand enjoys strong awareness, positive customer experiences, and loyal, engaged customers. Measuring brand health is not just a marketing exercise; it is a strategic imperative. Brand health directly influences customer loyalty, competitive advantage, and long-term business success. In fact, studies show companies with robust brand health often significantly outperform their competitors. One analysis found brands with strong health can exceed rivals’ revenue growth by up to 60%. It’s also financially prudent: organisations that invest in brand health research have seen an average 10:1 return on investment.
Why is accurately measuring brand health so critical for sustainable growth? Simply put, you can’t manage (or improve) what you don’t measure. Tracking brand health provides early warning signs of issues and highlights opportunities. Continuous monitoring of key brand metrics will show when your brand is on track to achieve its goals, and will flag any “wobbles” so you can take action before small problems escalate. In a fast-changing market, this proactive approach is essential, maintaining a healthy brand is much easier than rebuilding a damaged one. In the following guide, we’ll break down what brand health really means (beyond just awareness), the key metrics you should be tracking, and how to measure those metrics effectively using survey-based methods. We’ll also look at real Australian case studies illustrating the power of brand health tracking, and suggest strategies for marketers to maximise their brand’s health. Let’s dive in.
What is brand health? Brand health is more than a simple awareness score; it’s a multifaceted picture of your brand’s vitality in the minds of consumers. A brand with good health doesn’t just come to mind; it wins hearts. This includes rational measures (like awareness and consideration) as well as emotional and relationship-based factors (like trust, attachment, and advocacy). One useful definition is that brand health is how well a brand delivers on its promises to consumers and meets their expectations. It’s an aggregate of perceptions and experiences: how people feel about your brand, how they interact with it, and how strongly they identify with it over time.
Crucially, brand health goes beyond awareness or recognition alone. A brand might be well-known, but still unhealthy if people don’t trust it or feel any loyalty. Other factors include emotional engagement, customer satisfaction, perceived quality, and the resilience of the brand (its ability to weather challenges). When consumers form an emotional connection with a brand, they tend to stay loyal even when cheaper or more convenient options arise. They become enthusiastic advocates who recommend the brand to others, and they’re willing to forgive missteps – this loyalty buffer is essentially brand resilience in action. In short, a truly healthy brand doesn’t just have customers; it has fans.
Improving brand health isn’t just a feel-good goal, it directly supports commercial outcomes. Brands that cultivate strong customer relationships reap tangible benefits. For example, emotionally connected customers have significantly higher lifetime value – studies have found they can be worth 40–60% more over time than customers who are merely satisfied. They also tend to be less price-sensitive, since their purchase decisions are driven by a deeper bond than price alone. Likewise, higher brand health metrics correlate with better sales funnel performance: if people feel good about your brand, they are more likely to consider it, buy it again, and recommend it. Better customer satisfaction, often measured by brand health metrics like Net Promoter Score, has been linked to higher spending and repeat purchase rates; for instance, consumers who give a brand a 5-star satisfaction rating are more than twice as likely to buy again,and 80% of satisfied consumers spend more than unhappy ones. In summary, a strong brand health means stronger loyalty, greater advocacy, and more resilience, all of which feed directly into sustainable growth.
To effectively measure brand health, marketers track a set of key metrics that together paint a comprehensive picture. These metrics span the entire brand funnel from awareness at the top through to loyalty and advocacy at the bottom. By monitoring each stage, you can see where your brand is thriving and where it needs attention. Below we outline the practical brand health metrics every marketer should understand, how they are defined, and how they interrelate:
Brand awareness measures how well-known your brand is among your target audience. It’s the foundational metric of brand health – after all, if people don’t know your brand exists, nothing else can follow. Ongoing awareness tracking lets you gauge the effectiveness of your marketing in keeping your brand top-of-mind. Awareness is typically assessed in two ways:
Routinely tracking both aided and unaided awareness is important. An upward trend in awareness signals successful outreach or campaigns, whereas a decline might alert you to competitive pressure or insufficient media spend. Awareness alone isn’t sufficient for success, but it is the first hurdle in the brand funnel: consumers can’t consider or prefer your brand if they aren’t aware of it. For context, some organisations also measure brand recall in context (sometimes called needs-based salience) – i.e. how readily your brand comes to mind in specific buying situations – but at minimum, start with general awareness metrics.
Awareness is necessary, but not all consumers who know of your brand will actually consider purchasing it. This is where brand consideration comes in. Brand consideration is the proportion of consumers who would actively consider your brand as one of their options when they are in the market for a product or service you offer. In other words, given awareness, how many put your brand on their shortlist? A strong consideration score means your brand is resonating with people and is seen as a viable choice among competitors.
Measuring consideration typically involves survey questions like: “Which of the following brands would you consider purchasing from in [category]?” Respondents might tick all brands that apply (from a list of you and key competitors). The result tells you the percentage of the market that includes your brand in their pool of options. This is a critical mid-funnel metric: consumers might be aware of 10 brands but seriously consider only 3 of them. You want to be in that considered set.
If your consideration is significantly lower than awareness, it signals a problem: people know you, but for some reason they are not inclined to buy from you. Perhaps your brand positioning is unclear, your value proposition isn’t compelling, or you’re not reaching the right target audience. As a marketer, you’d then investigate why those aware of the brand aren’t considering it. It could be misperceptions, poor brand imagery, or simply that a competitor is preferred. By tracking consideration alongside awareness, you can calculate a rough conversion ratio (consideration ÷ awareness) to gauge how effectively you are moving people from knowing to liking your brand. Improving consideration may involve better communicating your brand’s benefits, addressing barriers (e.g. “Is it too expensive?”), or retargeting messaging to those aware-but-not-considering segments.
Closely related to consideration is brand preference. While consideration measures all brands someone would think about buying, preference indicates which brand they prefer most or would choose if they had to pick one. It’s essentially the share of consumers who would pick your brand as their first choice over competitors. In surveys, this can be measured by questions such as: “Of these brands, which one is your preferred choice for [product/service]?” or “Which brand do you prefer, Brand A or Brand B?”.
Brand preference is a powerful metric because it reflects competitive strength. If many consumers prefer your brand above others, it suggests you have a strong value proposition and customer experience that sets you apart. High preference usually results from consistently demonstrating superior value – whether through quality, price, brand image, or emotional appeal – such that customers would rather buy from you than anyone else. This metric, like consideration, is tied to the middle-to-late stage of the funnel: it often correlates with market share, since the more people prefer you, the more will ultimately purchase you.
Monitoring preference over time helps identify shifts in competitive positioning. If a competitor launches a popular new product and your preference scores drop, that’s a red flag. On the other hand, a rising preference share could forecast future sales growth. If you find preference is low relative to consideration (e.g. many would consider you but few name you as the top pick), you may need to strengthen your brand differentiation or address specific weaknesses that keep you from being the first choice. Tactics might include highlighting unique selling points more clearly, improving product features, or leveraging customer testimonials to build trust.
While awareness, consideration, and preference cover how consumers progress toward purchase, Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a metric focused on loyalty and advocacy after purchase. NPS gauges customers’ likelihood to recommend your brand to others – essentially measuring how many of your customers are so satisfied that they’d promote you via word-of-mouth. It’s one of the most widely used indicators of brand loyalty and customer satisfaction in industry.
NPS is derived from a survey question typically phrased: “On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend [Brand] to a friend or colleague?” Respondents giving a 9 or 10 are labelled “Promoters” (enthusiastic loyalists), 7–8 are “Passives” (satisfied but unenthusiastic), and 0–6 are “Detractors” (unhappy customers who could discourage others from the brand). The Net Promoter Score itself is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters, yielding a score between –100 and +100. A positive NPS (above 0) means you have more promoters than detractors, and world-class brands often score in the +50 to +80 range.
NPS is popular because it’s simple and highly benchmarkable across industries. It provides a straightforward pulse on loyalty. If your NPS improves, it means a growing share of your customers love your brand enough to recommend it. This metric ties closely to retention and repeat purchase behavior: promoters are more likely to buy again, while detractors are at risk of churning. Many companies therefore use NPS as a key performance indicator of overall brand health. However, it’s important to dig deeper beyond the number. Best practice is to ask a follow-up question like “Why did you give that score?” to capture open-ended feedback. This yields qualitative insight into what drives loyalty or dissatisfaction, which you can act on.
Remember that NPS, while useful, is not a comprehensive measure on its own. It should be used in combination with other metrics. For instance, if NPS is high but your sales are stagnant, perhaps you have strong loyalty among a small customer base but low awareness in the broader market. Or if NPS is low but awareness is high, you might be bringing in many new customers who then have poor experiences. Always interpret NPS alongside metrics like satisfaction (CSAT), customer retention rates, and the qualitative reasons behind the scores.
Emotional engagement refers to the depth of emotional connection and affinity consumers have with your brand. This is a more nuanced aspect of brand health, but incredibly important. It’s essentially measuring the strength of feelings your brand evokes. Do consumers just recognise your logo, or do they feel actual love, trust, pride, or joy when they think of your brand? Emotionally engaged customers see your brand as more than a commodity; it means something to them on a personal level.
Unlike awareness or preference (which are somewhat rational or behavioural), emotional engagement is typically measured through qualitative and attitudinal survey items. For example, you might include statements in a brand tracker like “I feel proud to be associated with [Brand]”, “[Brand] is a brand I trust”, or “[Brand] really understands people like me”, and ask respondents to rate their agreement on a scale. Tools like brand personality or values alignment surveys can also gauge emotional connection (e.g. does the brand align with the consumer’s self-image or ideals?). High emotional engagement often manifests in brand advocacy and resilience: emotionally attached customers will stick with you in tough times and actively defend or promote the brand.
Though “emotional engagement” can sound fuzzy, it has concrete business impact. As mentioned earlier, customers who feel an emotional bond can be significantly more valuable over time and less likely to be swayed by competitors. They also tend to forgive occasional mistakes, giving you a chance to fix issues without losing their business. In essence, emotional engagement is the underpinning of brand loyalty. To track it, include questions in your research about feelings and brand relationships, not just logical attributes. Look for signals like brand affinity (“I love this brand”), brand trust, and brand community (do people feel part of a tribe or community by using the brand?). These emotional insights help you understand the intangible equity your brand has built. If emotional metrics are low, it may indicate your brand positioning is not connecting on a human level, or that your customer experience is purely transactional. By improving emotional engagement – for instance, through storytelling, purpose-driven branding, or better customer service – you can foster stronger loyalty that goes beyond reason.
Brand advocacy measures the extent to which your customers and fans actively advocate for your brand to others. It’s closely tied to NPS (which is essentially one form of advocacy measurement), but can be captured in other ways too. Advocacy is evident when customers do things like recommending your product unprompted, writing positive reviews, referring friends, or even defending the brand in discussions. In surveys, you might ask questions such as: “Have you recommended [Brand] to someone in the past 6 months?” or “How likely are you to post a positive review of [Brand]?” These help quantify advocacy beyond the intention captured in the NPS question.
Why is advocacy a key metric? Because enthusiastic word-of-mouth can dramatically amplify your marketing. When a customer becomes a genuine advocate, they essentially become a volunteer marketer for your brand, which is incredibly valuable and cost-effective. High advocacy indicates a strong brand community and satisfaction – people won’t recommend a brand unless they truly believe in it. It also correlates with growth; brands with armies of advocates tend to acquire new customers more easily (since people trust personal recommendations).
Tracking advocacy can involve both survey data and observational metrics. Survey-based advocacy (like NPS or direct recommendation questions) tells you the potential advocate pool. You can supplement this with metrics like social media engagement or content shares to see if your customers are actually voicing support publicly. Aim to grow your promoter segment and reduce detractors over time. Additionally, pay attention to what promoters say about why they recommend you – those themes are your brand’s strengths to double down on. Conversely, if advocacy is low, investigate the pain points holding customers back from recommending. It could be inconsistent service, lack of differentiation, or simply that they’re satisfied but not “wowed.” Turning satisfaction into passionate advocacy is a sign of a truly healthy brand.
Brand equity is the culmination of all the above – it represents the overall value of the brand as an asset, often understood as the goodwill or intangible value that a well-known, well-regarded brand name adds to a product or company. In simpler terms, brand equity asks: what is the total impact of having a strong brand? High brand equity means consumers will pay more for your brand versus a generic equivalent, choose it more often, and perhaps even invest in it (if we think in terms of shareholder value). It’s a broad concept, but in the context of brand health measurement, brand equity can be treated as a composite index derived from several key metrics.
Marketers and researchers sometimes calculate a brand equity score by combining metrics like those above into one number. For instance, one approach defines Brand Strength as a combination of purchase intent and NPS, and then multiplies Brand Strength by brand recall to get an overall Brand Equity index. In that illustrative formula: (Purchase Intent + NPS) x 100 = Brand Strength, and (Brand Strength x Unprompted Awareness) x 100 = Brand Equity. This kind of formula essentially weights your brand’s desirability (intent to buy and recommend) by how widely known it is, yielding an indicator of how powerful your brand is in the marketplace. Different firms have different proprietary methods for quantifying brand equity, but the key point is that brand equity encapsulates multiple facets of brand health into one holistic measure.
Even if you don’t calculate a single equity score internally, it’s useful to monitor perceptions that contribute to equity: things like perceived quality, brand associations, and overall reputation. Some brand trackers include a direct question like “Overall, how would you rate the strength of [Brand]?” or “Which brand do you think has the best reputation in this category?” to gauge comparative equity. High brand equity usually translates into real financial advantages – for example, it can allow a company to charge price premiums, secure customer loyalty, and fend off new competitors more easily. As one marketing insight put it, brand health is a snapshot in time, while brand equity is the long-term accumulation of customer perceptions. By consistently measuring brand health metrics, you are effectively managing and building your brand equity. Improved metrics like higher awareness, better image, and more loyalty will ultimately increase the equity of the brand.
In summary, these key metrics – awareness, consideration, preference, NPS (loyalty), emotional engagement, advocacy, and equity – together form a comprehensive toolkit for brand health measurement. They are interrelated (improvements in one often bolster others) and align with stages of the consumer journey. Awareness leads to consideration, which coupled with positive perception leads to preference; satisfying experiences create loyalty and advocacy; and the sum of it all is brand equity. By tracking these indicators regularly, marketers can pinpoint where the brand is strong or weak and diagnose what actions will have the most impact.
Now that we’ve covered what to measure, the next question is how do you measure brand health effectively? The most actionable and reliable way – especially for a company like Brand Health that specialises in brand research – is through structured brand tracking studies. In this section, we highlight methodologies centred on surveys and continuous tracking. We’ll also provide guidance on survey design, sample size, frequency, and choosing the right metrics for your brand tracker.
A brand tracking study is a longitudinal survey-based research program that continuously measures your brand health metrics over time. Unlike a one-off survey that provides a snapshot, a tracking study runs on a regular schedule (e.g. monthly or quarterly) to monitor trends and shifts in consumer perceptions. The goal is to see how your key metrics, awareness, consideration, loyalty, etc. are evolving in response to your marketing activities or external factors. By comparing each wave of the tracker to previous ones, you get actionable context, such as “our consideration score improved after the new campaign launch” or “awareness dipped during the quarter when we cut advertising”.
How to implement a brand tracking study: First, define your target population. For most brands, this will be a relevant general audience (e.g. category shoppers or a demographic group in your market). It’s crucial to go beyond just your current customers – a common mistake is surveying only your customer list, which won’t capture those who are aware of you but haven’t purchased (or lapsed customers you want to win back). A tracker should measure your broader market perception, so you may need to use an external panel or recruit respondents representative of your market. Achieving a representative sample often means working with a research panel provider to get a mix of respondents that match your desired demographics and usage profiles. For example, if you’re tracking a finance brand in Australia, you’d want a cross-section of Australian adults, not just your existing account holders.
Next, determine the frequency of data collection. The right cadence depends on how fast your market moves and what decisions you need to inform. Many brands opt for quarterly tracking, which balances having up-to-date data with cost. Others in very dynamic sectors (or running heavy advertising) might do monthly. In some cases, a continuous (weekly or bi-weekly) tracker is used, as was the case for Business Australia’s rebrand project where a bi-weekly brand tracker was launched to quickly detect changes in perceptions. The key is consistency: conduct the survey at regular intervals and keep methodology consistent so that results are comparable wave to wave. Consistency means using the same questionnaire (aside from occasional necessary updates), similar sample sizes, similar sampling methods, and timing that makes sense seasonally. This way, if you observe a metric move, you can be confident it’s due to real market changes and not a change in how the survey was done.
Sample size is another consideration. How many respondents do you need per wave? This depends on the level of granularity you want (e.g. total market vs. specific segments) and the statistical confidence required. In practice, many brand trackers use samples of a few hundred respondents per wave (often 200–500) to balance accuracy with cost. The larger the sample, the smaller your margin of error – but beyond a certain point you get diminishing returns. You can calculate the needed sample size mathematically based on desired confidence interval. For instance, for a large national consumer brand, ~1,000 respondents might give a robust read, whereas a niche B2B brand might track 200 specialised respondents and still get directional insights. Consistency in sample size is important too, don’t survey 200 people one quarter and 1,000 the next and expect trendlines to be smooth. Also ensure each wave’s sample is drawn from the same population criteria. If your Q1 survey was national and Q2 accidentally skewed more urban, you might see artificial shifts in awareness.
Survey content in a brand tracker will include questions covering all the key metrics we discussed (awareness, consideration, etc.) and often some diagnostics. A well-designed brand tracker survey typically has sections for: unaided awareness (open recall), aided awareness, brand usage (have you ever used brand X?), brand perceptions (attributes or image associations), brand satisfaction or NPS among users, consideration and preference among non-users, and possibly advertising awareness (“have you seen advertising for brand X lately?”). Including a few open-ended questions can add qualitative colour – for example, asking “What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of [Brand]?” can reveal spontaneous brand associations. The Brand Health Metrics we listed earlier can effectively be turned into survey questions or metrics within your tracking study.
One actionable tip: Make sure to also track your competitors in the same survey. Brand health is relative – you need to know not just your own metrics in isolation, but how you stack up versus others. For instance, it’s useful to measure consideration for not only your brand but your competitors (e.g. “Which of these brands would you consider?” with all major players listed). This competitive benchmarking will highlight if a rival is gaining ground or if you enjoy a lead on certain attributes. Many trackers include a “competitor comparison” section explicitly to compare brands across key image dimensions.
Lastly, analysis and reporting: With a continuous tracker, it’s important to turn data into insights and share them with your team regularly. Don’t just collect data for the sake of it – set aside time each wave to interpret what the changes mean and what actions might be needed (we’ll cover acting on the data in a later section). In fact, those that diligently track and apply the insights tend to see significantly higher ROI from marketing efforts than those flying blind. Treat your brand tracker as an ongoing feedback loop: it tells you if your brand is “OK” or needs attention, much like a regular health check-up.
In addition to standard tracking surveys, brands often employ deeper research techniques to understand the emotional and behavioural drivers behind the metrics. Brand health is not only what people do (e.g. buy or recommend), but why they do it. Emotional and behavioural consumer research aims to get at those underlying factors – the feelings, motivations, and subconscious influences that shape brand perceptions.
One approach is to include emotional measurement within your surveys. This can be done through carefully crafted questions and scales. For example, you might ask respondents to indicate how strongly they associate your brand with certain emotions or values: “Which of these words describe how you feel about [Brand]?” (e.g. trustworthy, exciting, friendly, innovative, etc.). You could use a semantic differential scale for brand personality attributes (traditional vs. modern, approachable vs. premium, etc.) to see how your brand is perceived at a gut level. These questions provide emotional insights beyond raw metrics – they let you track if your brand is building affinity or if it’s seen as distant, for instance.
Another technique is to leverage behavioural research in combination with surveys. While surveys capture stated attitudes, behavioural data (like purchase frequency, usage habits, or loyalty program activity) can validate if attitudes align with actions. Many brand trackers will segment results by customer behaviour – for example, compare the perceptions of active customers vs. occasional customers vs. non-customers. If you notice your active customers have very high NPS and emotional connection, but non-customers have low awareness or misperceptions, that tells a story about where to focus efforts (perhaps on awareness and trial to bring more people into the fold). Sometimes, brands will also conduct post-campaign surveys to evaluate behavioural change: in the case of R U OK?, as we’ll see in the case studies, survey-led evaluation was used to measure whether exposure to the campaign actually led people to change their behaviour (like reaching out to someone in need).
Advanced methods like implicit association tests (IAT) or MaxDiff and Conjoint analysis can also be part of your brand research arsenal. These go beyond direct questioning to reveal subconscious preferences or priorities. For example, implicit testing can measure how strongly and quickly people connect your brand with ideas like “safe” or “cool” – useful for emotional brand health tracking. Likewise, conjoint analysis might help identify which brand attributes drive preference the most, informing where to improve. These are more specialised techniques and typically used on a project basis, but they enrich your understanding of brand health drivers.
When conducting emotional and behavioural research, ensure you have the right sample and context. Sometimes it’s done qualitatively (focus groups, in-depth interviews) to hear emotions in consumers’ own words, which can then inform the design of your quantitative surveys. For behavioural aspects, you might integrate some of your own customer data (with proper privacy safeguards) – for example, surveying members of your loyalty program to see how their feelings correlate with their spend frequency.
The key takeaway is that measuring brand health isn’t only about numbers like awareness % or NPS; it’s also about understanding sentiments and actions. By combining ongoing quantitative tracking with periodic deep-dive research into emotions and behaviour, marketers can get a 360° view of brand health.
Survey Design Best Practices: No matter which methodologies you use, a few best practices will improve the quality of your brand health measurement:
By following these methodologies and tips, you’ll establish a solid measurement system that keeps you in tune with your brand’s health. Next, let’s look at some real-world examples in the Australian market where survey-based brand health tracking made a significant impact.
To illustrate the power of effectively measuring and managing brand health, let’s examine three case studies. Each showcases how survey-based insights and tracking translated into strategic action and improved outcomes for the brand.
Finder, a leading Australian fintech and comparison platform, provides a great example of leveraging ongoing brand tracking to fuel growth. As a startup-turned-household-name, Finder recognised that understanding consumers’ perceptions in real time was key to informing its marketing strategy. The company implemented a rigorous brand tracking program using regular surveys and analytics to monitor core brand metrics. This included tracking brand awareness, brand salience (mental availability), consideration, and Net Promoter Score, among others, broken down by demographics and media channels.
When Finder launched its “Be a Finder” campaign – an integrated marketing push across digital, TV, radio, and outdoor media – the impact was measured through their brand tracker almost immediately. Within just ten weeks of the campaign’s rollout, the survey data showed remarkable lifts in brand health metrics: a 23% increase in brand awareness, a 45% improvement in brand salience, and a 19% jump in consideration for Finder’s services. Most impressively, Finder’s Net Promoter Score rose by 8 points in that short period, indicating a solid boost in customer advocacy. This surge in brand health translated to business results as well – Finder recorded all-time high monthly revenues following the campaign, validating that the improved brand metrics were driving commercial performance.
The case highlights how brand tracking informed Finder’s strategy. The analytics pinpointed which marketing activities were moving the needle on engagement and awareness. For example, if the data showed certain demographics had lower awareness, Finder could retarget those groups with tailored media. The platform’s agile approach – reviewing brand metrics in near real-time – meant they could refine campaigns on the fly. Finder’s team has noted that an insight not actioned is a wasted opportunity, so they baked these insights into decision-making continually. By injecting this data-driven rigour, Finder evolved from a startup into a trusted brand that’s top-of-mind for Australians making financial decisions. In summary, Finder’s experience demonstrates that consistent measurement and quick action on brand health metrics (like awareness and NPS) can rapidly accelerate a brand’s growth in the market.
When Business Australia (formerly NSW Business Chamber) undertook a major rebranding initiative, they relied on survey data at every step to ensure the brand’s health was tracking in the right direction. Business Australia is a membership-based organisation serving businesses with advice, services, and resources. Facing steadily declining member retention a few years ago, the team knew they needed to realign their brand and offerings with market needs. They launched a bi-weekly brand tracker study, connecting them directly with their target B2B audience on a regular basis.
Through these frequent surveys, Business Australia could accurately measure the impact of key brand decisions – from changes in messaging to the rollout of the new brand identity. The tracker helped identify whether the new value proposition (“free for all members” and focusing on functional support for businesses) was landing with the audience, and which brand attributes needed strengthening. Importantly, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and budgets tightened, Business Australia used the tracker data to adjust their media strategy. The organisation had to scale down paid media (in fact putting TV advertising on hold), which unsurprisingly led to a drop in some awareness metrics. However, seeing this data, they acted quickly by shifting focus to earned media and PR to keep the brand visible despite fewer ads. Within months, the tracker showed brand awareness rebounded to pre-lockdown levels – a testament to agile decision-making informed by survey insights.
The outcomes speak volumes about maximising brand health through data-led strategy. Over the course of the rebrand and following year, Business Australia saw its membership grow from 20,000 to 58,000 – a huge increase in engagement and reach. Website visits also skyrocketed (a 1,011% increase in traffic) as the brand’s content and resources gained traction with a wider audience. Perhaps most striking, the Net Promoter Score for Business Australia jumped by 28 points, indicating a major improvement in how members felt about the organisation and their likelihood to recommend it. According to Richard Spencer, Business Australia’s Chief Customer Experience Officer, the research data was invaluable in making “informed business decisions at critical touchpoints” during the transformation. The ability to gather market feedback quickly and continuously meant the team could refine their brand positioning and services in line with what members truly needed.
This case underscores a few lessons: firstly, brand tracking isn’t only for consumer brands – B2B and membership organisations benefit just as much from staying tuned into their audience’s perceptions. Secondly, tracking during a rebrand helps ensure the new branding is effective and allows course corrections (e.g. adjusting marketing mix) if any metric heads south. And finally, improvements in brand health metrics like awareness and NPS can correlate with tangible results such as membership growth and usage. Business Australia’s survey-led approach to their rebrand demonstrates how marrying data with brand strategy leads to smarter media decisions and stronger engagement.
R U OK? is an Australian suicide prevention charity known for its annual R U OK? Day campaign, which encourages people to check in on friends and ask “Are you OK?” as a way to support those struggling. For an organisation whose mission is to change public behaviour and attitudes about talking openly on mental health, measuring brand health has a slightly different but critical flavour. They need to know not just awareness of the campaign, but whether it’s shifting mindsets and inspiring action – essentially, is the campaign working?
To answer this, R U OK? has invested in survey-led campaign evaluation in collaboration with academic partners. One comprehensive evaluation was conducted via an Australia-wide population survey, with over 2,000 respondents, to assess the campaign’s impact on awareness, attitudes, and self-reported behaviours. The findings demonstrated the growing power of the R U OK? brand and provided hard evidence of behaviour change:
By using surveys to capture these data points, R U OK? could confidently demonstrate the effectiveness of their brand and campaign to stakeholders, funders, and the community at large. The research approach answered key questions: Is awareness translating into action? Which messages are resonating? Are there groups who aren’t getting the message yet? For example, the evaluation noted an interesting finding that people who had sought help for mental health in the past year were more likely to be aware of and participate in the campaign – suggesting that those with personal experience recognised the value of R U OK?’s message, and also highlighting a segment to particularly engage (since they might become advocates themselves).
In summary, the R U OK? case study highlights how survey research can evaluate a brand’s social impact and guide its strategy. By treating their campaign as a brand to track – measuring awareness, sentiment (belief in the message’s importance), and self-reported behaviour changes – R U OK? could validate that their approach is making a difference. It also arms them with insights to fine-tune future campaigns (for instance, by targeting demographics with lower awareness or addressing any barriers people report in having those conversations). For marketers, this example is a reminder that brand health tracking isn’t only about commercial metrics – it can be applied to any initiative where changing minds and behaviours is the objective. The principles remain the same: define what success looks like (awareness, engagement, action), measure it rigorously, and let the data inform how you maximise your impact.
Measuring your brand’s health is only half the equation – the real payoff comes from acting on those insights to improve and maximise brand health. Once you have reliable data on where your brand stands (and perhaps why), you can craft targeted strategies to strengthen any weak spots and build on your strengths. Here are several practical strategies marketers can use to interpret brand health data and boost their brand’s performance:
These strategies should be continually informed by your brand health metrics. It’s an iterative process: measure, act, measure again. For example, after refining positioning, you’d look for improvements in perception metrics; after a customer experience fix, you’d expect NPS to rise; after a new campaign, you’d check awareness lift. Most marketers find that a holistic, data-driven approach to brand management results in steadier growth. In fact, organisations that actively manage brand health can better prove brand’s contribution to business results internally, which in turn can justify sustained or increased investment in brand-building.
One more tip: avoid the common pitfalls as you implement strategies. Don’t chase one metric at the expense of others (for instance, pushing awareness via gimmicks that hurt brand perception). Ensure any changes stay true to your brand’s core values – authenticity is key to long-term health. And be patient; brand building is a long game, so track trends over time and celebrate incremental wins like a few point rise in consideration or a narrowing of a perception gap with a competitor.
In summary, maximising brand health is about closing the loop: using insights to guide brand strategy, executing changes or initiatives, and then measuring again to see the impact. It’s a continuous improvement cycle. When done right, the result is a brand that not only has strong metrics on paper but is visibly thriving – resonating deeply with consumers (high emotional connection), commanding loyalty and advocacy, and translating those into commercial success.
While tracking brand health is crucial, there are several common issues marketers should be mindful of. These mistakes can lead to misguided strategies or wasted effort. Below we list typical errors in brand health tracking – and tips on how to avoid them:
By being aware of these pitfalls and proactively avoiding them, you can ensure your brand health program remains robust and credible. In summary, use a broad lens (not tunnel vision on one metric), focus on meaningful measures over vanity stats, contextualise everything, align with strategy, uphold research rigor, and most importantly, act on what you learn. Avoiding these common mistakes will set you up to derive maximum value from your brand health tracking, keeping your brand strategy on track and effective.
In today’s dynamic market, consistently measuring and managing brand health is indispensable for sustainable brand performance. Your brand is one of your organisation’s most valuable assets – and like any asset, it needs regular check-ups and maintenance. A healthy brand means stronger customer trust, higher loyalty, and greater resilience against competitors or crises. As we’ve discussed, the process of tracking brand health (through metrics like awareness, consideration, NPS, etc.) provides early warnings of issues and highlights opportunities that you can act on to keep your brand growing. Brands that invest in this continuous measurement and improvement approach tend to reap the rewards in market share, customer retention, and even financial outcomes. In fact, when brand health is monitored and nurtured over time, it builds brand equity that drives long-term business success.
To recap, we defined what brand health really means – not just name recognition, but the holistic state of how consumers know, feel, and engage with your brand. We covered the key metrics across the brand funnel that marketers should track, and how to gather those insights. The Australian case studies (Finder, Business Australia, R U OK?) demonstrated that when companies pay close attention to brand health data and integrate it into decision-making, they see tangible improvements like higher awareness, better customer advocacy, and growth in engagement. And we’ve highlighted strategies to maximise brand health, from refining positioning based on insight, to doubling down on customer experience and innovation, all while avoiding common issues in the process.
Ultimately, the brands that win in the long run are those that build genuine connections with consumers and adapt continuously to meet their needs – and measuring brand health is the compass that guides that journey. As a marketing professional, you have the tools and frameworks from this guide to not only measure your brand’s health effectively but also to translate that knowledge into action. It’s both an art and a science: the art of brand building, fuelled by the science of data and consumer research.
Ready to elevate your brand’s health? Consider leveraging the expertise of Brand Health’s services to support your journey. Brand Health specialises in consumer insights, brand tracking, and emotional & behavioural research – exactly the areas we’ve discussed as critical. Whether you need to design a comprehensive brand tracker, delve into the emotions driving your customers, or interpret the metrics to shape strategy, our team is here to help. We can partner with you to implement a robust brand health measurement program and turn those insights into effective marketing and growth plans.
Don’t leave your brand’s success to guesswork. By investing in continuous brand health measurement and making insight-led decisions, you’ll build a brand that not only performs well on metrics but truly resonates with customers – the kind of brand that achieves lasting loyalty and advocacy. Keeping a finger on the pulse of your brand health is one of the smartest moves you can make as a marketer. Let’s ensure your brand stays healthy, vibrant, and primed for sustainable growth in the years ahead.
Interested in learning more or need support with measuring and maximising your brand’s health? Reach out to Brand Health for a consultation. Together, we’ll help your brand thrive.