Turning Competitor Insights Into Brand Growth: Lessons From Australian Brands

Thursday 8:00 AM, Sydney. The marketing team at a top Australian retailer huddles around the latest brand health dashboard. Eyes widen – a rival brand’s customer satisfaction has surged, while their own trust score has slipped. Months ago they were on top; now competitors are siphoning disenchanted customers. It’s a scenario playing out across industries, where trust and consumer perception have become key battlegrounds for brands. Consider Australia’s supermarket giants: in 2022, Woolworths and Coles were celebrated as the nation’s most trusted brands, yet by late 2024 they had plummeted to record distrust levels. For marketing leaders, the message is clear – without vigilant competitor analysis and brand tracking, you can be blindsided by shifting consumer sentiment.

This article dives into how Australian brands are using survey-based competitor analysis, from continuous brand tracking to campaign benchmarking and consumer perception studies, to steer strategic growth. Through real examples like grocery rivals responding to price wars and quick-serve restaurants measuring ad campaigns, we’ll see how competitor insights inform smarter brand strategy. It’s a narrative of data-driven adaptation: brands tuning into the market’s heartbeat and pivoting before it’s too late. By the end, senior marketers will have practical guidance on leveraging these tools, avoiding common pitfalls, and keeping their brands a step ahead in the trust and perception stakes.

Defining Competitor Analysis and Its Strategic Value

Competitor analysis is a broad discipline, but in modern brand management it often boils down to systematic consumer research that compares your brand to others on key metrics. Survey-based methods are central to this. Let’s define three core approaches, brand tracking, consumer perception studies, and campaign benchmarking, and why they’re strategically valuable:

• Brand Tracking: This is the ongoing process of monitoring brand performance and consumer attitudes over time. Typically using regular surveys, brands track metrics like awareness, consideration, preference, and loyalty, comparing themselves against competitors. The goal is to understand how consumers view your brand versus others and how those perceptions change. As Brand Health notes, “Brand tracking taps into the thoughts, feelings, wants, needs and perceptions of consumers … to understand how they view your and competitor brands”. By collecting this data continuously, marketers can spot trends, measure the impact of marketing activities, and react to competitive moves in near real-time. Strategically, brand tracking acts as an early warning system and compass, if a rival’s new campaign is eroding your brand preference, you’ll see it in the tracker and can respond swiftly.
• Consumer Perception Benchmarking: These studies dig into brand image and reputation. Through surveys, brands gauge how consumers rate them on attributes (e.g. quality, value, trustworthiness, innovation) and then benchmark those scores against category norms or specific competitors. The strategic value lies in uncovering strengths and weaknesses in context. For instance, a bank might learn its digital experience is top-notch compared to peers, but its trust score lags the industry average – a clear weakness to address. By benchmarking consumer perceptions, brands discover where they over or under-perform in the consumer’s mind. This insight guides positioning and messaging; marketing can double down on differentiators and shore up the areas where competitors have an edge. In short, perception benchmarks help align brand strategy with what truly sways consumer choice in your market.
• Campaign Benchmarking: This approach measures the effectiveness of marketing campaigns relative to competitors and market benchmarks. It often involves pre- and post-campaign surveys to track lifts in metrics like ad awareness, brand recall, and purchase intent. Crucially, brands don’t look at their campaign in isolation, they compare gains to those of competitors running campaigns in the same period, or to category averages. The strategic pay-off is understanding whether your campaign cut through the noise and moved the needle more than others. For example, if your advertising boosted brand consideration by +5 points but a rival’s campaign boosted theirs by +10, you know you’re losing ground and must adapt. Campaign benchmarking informs media strategy, creative effectiveness, and budget allocation by highlighting what’s working (or not) in the competitive context. When results are stacked against market norms or a competitor’s performance, marketers get a clear read on how well their campaign really performed.

Strategic Value: Together, these methods give a 360° view of your brand’s competitive standing. Instead of making decisions on gut feel, brands base strategy on evidence: Which rival is gaining on our customer loyalty? Where do we lead in consumer esteem, and where are we behind? Did our latest campaign blunt the impact of our competitor’s, or do we need to respond further? This insight is power. In today’s fast-moving Australian market, where consumer trust can swing dramatically and new campaigns bombard the public weekly, survey-based competitor analysis is what separates proactive brands from reactive ones. It ensures that the metrics that matter most to your brand’s success are continuously measured and understood in context. Armed with that intel, marketing leaders can confidently craft strategies to bolster their brand’s strengths, correct its weaknesses, and seize opportunities that competitors overlook.

Brand Tracking as a Competitive Compass

Imagine you’re managing one of Australia’s big supermarket brands in the midst of a price war. Every week, millions of shoppers choose between you and your arch-rival. How do you know if a new pricing strategy or ad campaign is shifting the tide? This is where brand tracking becomes a competitive compass, a continuous feedback loop from consumers that shows who’s winning hearts and minds in real time.

Consider the recent showdown between Coles, Woolworths, and Aldi. As cost-of-living pressures escalated and an official inquiry probed supermarket pricing, Australian consumers’ perceptions started to shift quickly. Ongoing brand tracking picked up the warning signs. Aldi, long positioned as the budget-friendly option, saw its consideration score climb, while Woolworths and Coles plummeted. In the same period, perceived “value for money” scores tanked for the big two supermarkets, even as Aldi’s value score ticked up slightly. These are dramatic swings in consumer sentiment, and they were captured by continuous tracking well before the full impact hit sales figures.

The story doesn’t end with the numbers, it’s how brands responded. Coles, for instance, doubled down on price messaging (“Down, Down” campaigns and pricing freezes) to reclaim its value reputation. Woolworths emphasised its freshness and loyalty programs, trying to shore up goodwill as trust wavered. Brand tracking acted as an early warning system: it signalled that consumer trust and price sentiment were veering in Aldi’s favour, giving Coles and Woolworths a chance to react.

For marketing leaders at these companies, competitor-focused brand tracking delivered both stark reality and strategic direction. It quantified the “brand damage” inflicted by negative press and competitor positioning. It identified which attributes (e.g. “affordable pricing” or “customer trust”) were most impacted, so teams could craft campaigns to address them. And crucially, it benchmarked each brand against its rivals continuously, keeping everyone honest about where they stood. In essence, brand tracking served as a competitive compass, pointing out when a brand was off course relative to others. Whether it’s supermarkets, banks, or telecom providers, this compass is invaluable: it enables brands to navigate by real consumer sentiment, not guesswork. As soon as a competitor gains an edge, a higher preference score, a jump in satisfaction, a buzzworthy campaign, a good tracking program will reflect it. The brand that spots that signal first can act fast to adjust strategy, refine messaging, or innovate on product/service to close the gap. In a market as dynamic as Australia’s, those who track the tide of consumer perception and competitor moves are far better positioned to sail ahead of it.

Benchmarking Consumer Perceptions

Every brand has a story in consumers’ minds, a composite of qualities, feelings, and expectations that define how it’s perceived. Benchmarking consumer perceptions means measuring those facets of your brand image and seeing how they stack up against the competition or the broader market. It’s like holding up a mirror that not only reflects your brand, but also shows the other faces in the room. The insights can be revelatory: a brand might discover it’s seen as more innovative than the category norm (a strength to leverage), but less trustworthy than key competitors (a weakness to fix). Armed with this knowledge, brands have repositioned themselves or sharpened their messaging to exploit competitive white spaces.

Take the Australian banking sector, for example. Banks routinely track metrics like trust, customer satisfaction, and innovation and compare notes. In recent years, digital-focused banks and smaller institutions often outrank the “Big Four” on customer satisfaction and trust measures. A hypothetical scenario: suppose NAB (National Australia Bank) finds through a perception study that its trust score trails the industry average, while a smaller player like ING is topping the charts in customer trust. Such a finding would be a red flag, and indeed, Australian consumer polls have shown some smaller banks achieving trust levels that the majors envy. This insight might spur a strategic response. NAB could launch a campaign highlighting customer-centric initiatives or invest in service improvements to narrow the trust gap. In fact, we saw something similar a few years ago when one major bank rolled out a high-profile “We’re listening” campaign after internal tracking showed they lagged competitors on customer satisfaction. By acknowledging the weakness and addressing it head-on in messaging, the bank aimed to reshape consumer perceptions and rebuild its standing relative to rivals.

Competitor perception metrics also help brands discover niche opportunities. Consider a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brand in the crowded snacks category. A survey-based perception benchmark might reveal that, compared to the category norm, consumers rate this brand very highly on “authentic, local brand” appeal but below average on “widely available”. This kind of insight can guide a two-pronged strategy: double down on the authenticity angle in branding (since it differentiates from big multinational competitors), and improve distribution channels to address availability. Alternatively, the data might show a competitor owns the perception of “healthier choice” in the category, while your brand is associated with “indulgence.” Depending on your goals, you might decide to embrace that indulgent image, or pivot to launch a healthier sub-line to compete on that attribute. The key is that by benchmarking against competitors, you see the gaps clearly. As one marketing insight goes, “what gets measured gets managed.” If you never measure how consumers view you versus others, you might assume your brand’s reputation is rock solid, only to find you were coasting on outdated laurels.

We can look at the telecommunications sector for a cautionary tale. When Optus suffered a massive data breach in 2022, its customer trust took a nosedive. Competitor Telstra, by contrast, maintained far better trust levels. This stark difference in perception (laid bare by brand tracking surveys) was a strategic opening for Telstra, and indeed Telstra capitalised by touting its network security and reliability, aiming to reinforce why it was the safer choice. Optus, on the other hand, embarked on a long road of brand rehabilitation, knowing from the data that distrust lingers and would need serious effort to reverse. The lesson here: consumer perception benchmarks not only highlight where you stand, but also signal where competitors are vulnerable or strong. If a rival stumbles in public perception, that’s your opportunity to differentiate. If a competitor is beloved for something you lack, that’s your cue to innovate or reposition.

Many Australian brands have used these insights to sharpen their positioning. When a homegrown cereal brand found that health-conscious consumers perceived it as lagging behind a leading competitor on nutritional benefits, they reformulated the product and launched a campaign around “whole grains and no added sugar”. Conversely, an iconic Aussie footwear brand, upon learning it scored exceptionally high on “heritage and authenticity” relative to new trendy rivals, leaned into that strength with messaging like “Decades of Trust – Worn by Generations.” In each case, the changes were guided by a sober look at where the brand excelled or fell short against competitors in the consumer’s eyes.

In summary, benchmarking consumer perceptions turns abstract brand “image” into quantifiable metrics and competitive rankings. It reveals the DNA of your brand’s reputation, and by comparing that DNA with others, you can splice together a strategy to stand out. Whether it leads you to reposition your brand entirely or simply tweak a tagline, the ultimate goal is the same: ensure that what consumers believe about your brand will favour you over the competition when it counts.

Campaign Benchmarking in Action

No marketing campaign unfolds in a vacuum. When you launch a new ad blitz or promotional campaign, your competitors might be doing the same, and consumers are bombarded with all of it. Campaign benchmarking is about measuring how well your marketing efforts perform not just on their own merits, but relative to the competitive noise. It answers questions like: Did our campaign boost brand metrics more than the other guys’ campaign did? Are we breaking through to consumers, or getting drowned out?

To illustrate, let’s step into the world of quick service restaurants (QSRs). Australians love their fast food, and brands like McDonald’s, KFC, and Hungry Jack’s (Burger King) are in constant competition for share of stomach, and share of mind. Suppose McDonald’s Australia rolls out a big summer campaign featuring a new burger and catchy jingle, while at the same time KFC launches a promotion for its fried chicken with a limited-time twist. Both will naturally track their own campaign results through sales and social media buzz. But the savviest marketers also commission pre and post-campaign surveys to gauge shifts in consumer awareness, consideration, and brand preference, and then compare those shifts against each other.

Here’s how it works in practice: Before the campaign, you measure baseline metrics, e.g. what percentage of consumers recall seeing a McDonald’s ad recently, and how likely are they to buy McDonald’s next time they want fast food (vs the same questions for KFC, Hungry Jack’s, etc). After the campaign period, you measure again. The difference shows your campaign’s lift. Critically, you then benchmark that lift against competitors’. Did McDonald’s ad awareness rise more than KFC’s during that period? Did McDonald’s gain in purchase intent while KFC stayed flat? These comparative outcomes determine if your campaign actually won you ground in the market or not. Often, brands will find that everyone’s advertising drove some lift (overall category awareness might rise if multiple brands are advertising hard), so it’s the relative gain that matters. If your brand saw a +5 point boost in ad recall but a rival enjoyed +10, you effectively lost share of voice, even though your own number went up.

Campaign benchmarking isn’t just about ad recall. It often examines brand lift, changes in brand familiarity, favourability, or purchase intent attributed to the campaign. For a concrete example, consider a campaign by a retail brand like Myer (a major Australian department store). Say Myer runs a Christmas advertising campaign and measures a 10-point increase in “would consider shopping at Myer” among those who saw the ads. On the surface, great, the campaign seems effective. But a competitor, David Jones, also ran holiday ads and saw a 15-point increase in consideration. The benchmarking exercise reveals that David Jones’ campaign was relatively more effective, possibly stealing some of the thunder. Myer’s marketing team might conclude that their message didn’t resonate as strongly, or that their media mix under-delivered compared to the competitor’s. They could then dig into why, was it the creative? The offer? The targeting? and apply those learnings to future campaigns.

Another angle of campaign benchmarking is using category norms as a yardstick. Research agencies often have normative databases (e.g. an average campaign lift in brand awareness is X points). If your campaign underperforms that norm while a competitor exceeds it, that’s a clear sign of who won that round. Seeing your internal brand metrics go up post-campaign feels good, but the real question is ‘did they go up more than the competitor’s metrics’? If not, you may have just run in place while the race continued.

In summary, campaign benchmarking brings competitive context to your campaign ROI. It’s an action-oriented practice: you measure, compare, and then iterate. If your competitor consistently beats you in post-campaign brand lifts, it’s time to rethink your approach, maybe test new creative concepts (via concept testing research) or adjust your media spend. If you’re the one coming out on top, benchmarking will validate that and push you to keep raising the bar, knowing rivals will up their game. The winners in the long run are those who internalise the mantra that every campaign is a competitive battle, and success is measured not just in absolute gains, but in who gains more. In Australia’s vibrant marketing landscape, from burger wars to bank promotions, that mindset is what separates the brands consumers remember from those that blend into the background noise.

Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Implementing competitor analysis through surveys and trackers isn’t foolproof. In fact, some brands gather tons of data yet still miss the strategic insight, often due to a few common pitfalls. Here are some frequent mistakes senior marketers should be wary of, and tips on avoiding them:

• Over-indexing on awareness metrics: It’s easy to fixate on brand awareness, after all, every CMO loves to hear that 90% of the market recognises their brand. But awareness alone can be a vanity metric if not paired with depth of engagement. “Top-of-mind awareness is good, but top-of-mind brand preference is essential because that’s what drives sales,” marketing expert Mark Schaefer reminds us. In practical terms, don’t declare victory just because your unaided awareness went up a few points. Ask: did consideration or purchase intent rise as well? If a rival brand enjoys higher preference among those who know it, they can outperform you with lower awareness. Avoid the trap: Supplement awareness tracking with metrics like consideration, preference, and conversion. Ensure your KPIs include quality of awareness, e.g. what percentage of aware consumers would actually choose us? Not just quantity. This gives a fuller picture. Many brands also segment awareness (e.g. awareness among target demographic A vs general population); a broad awareness boost might be worthless if it’s coming from people outside your buying audience. Stay focused on the end goal: being known is only valuable if being known leads to being chosen.
• Ignoring preference or loyalty gaps: This relates closely to the above. A common mistake is to celebrate high awareness or even high trial, while glossing over a preference gap, a situation where consumers know you, maybe have tried you, but prefer the competitor. For example, say surveys show 80% of consumers have tried your product (great), yet when asked their preferred brand, you score 30% and a competitor scores 50%. That gap is a glaring risk: it means many consumers are familiar with you but would still rather go elsewhere. We’ve seen this in categories like mobile service providers, a customer might use your service but when asked which provider they prefer or trust, they name another (often the one with better service or reputation). Avoid the trap: Pay attention to relative metrics like share of preference or first choice brand. If you see a big delta between your awareness and your preference (or between your preference and a competitor’s), dig into why. Is it a product issue? A brand image issue? This is where open-ended survey questions can help, ask consumers why they prefer competitor X, or what it would take for them to prefer you. Addressing a preference gap might mean improving product quality, adjusting pricing, or repositioning your brand to be more appealing on the attributes that matter (for instance, if people prefer the competitor for their sustainability ethos, you know what you need to highlight or improve). The worst sin is to ignore those gaps and continue pouring money into awareness or acquisition campaigns without fixing the underlying issue, you’ll end up filling a leaky bucket.
• Neglecting competitor context and trends: Another pitfall is looking at your brand tracking results in isolation. You might be happy to see your brand’s consideration score went up 2 points this quarter, but if a key competitor’s went up 5 points, you’re actually losing ground in the market. Competitive benchmarking is crucial for proper interpretation. Similarly, don’t just look at a single data point; look at the trend. If your satisfaction score is holding steady but the category average is rising, that’s a warning sign. Avoid the trap: Always evaluate your metrics side-by-side with competitor metrics or an industry benchmark. Many brands create a competitive scorecard for each tracking cycle, highlighting not just “our number” but “our number vs. their number vs. last period”. This contextual view prevents false complacency. It also helps you spot emerging threats, e.g. a smaller competitor quietly improving year over year. By keeping an eye on trendlines, you won’t be surprised when that competitor starts eating into your market share; you’ll have seen it coming in the perception data and (hopefully) acted sooner.
• Misusing or misreading survey data: Survey-based insights are powerful, but poor design or misinterpretation can lead you astray. One common mistake is surveying the wrong audience. For instance, using general population samples when your product targets a niche segment, leading to skewed results (a point the Brand Health team emphasises: your tracker must research the right audience). Another issue is overreacting to tiny changes within margin of error, declaring a trend when the shift is not statistically significant. Avoid the trap: Work with research experts to design your studies. Ensure your sample is representative of your target market (not too broad or too narrow). Set proper confidence intervals so you know what size of change is truly meaningful. And use qualitative follow-ups to add colour to the numbers. If a metric swings up or down, having some verbatim consumer feedback explaining why can prevent misinterpretation. Always cross-check findings: does the change in survey data align with what you’re seeing in sales or web traffic? If something doesn’t add up, investigate further before pivoting strategy. The mantra here is “data-driven, not data-blind”. Use the data, but don’t follow it off a cliff without applying critical thinking.

By sidestepping these pitfalls, you’ll ensure that your competitor analysis efforts genuinely inform smart decisions. The goal is to have a balanced scorecard of brand health: one that values quality of customer sentiment over just quantity of exposure, that keeps an unflinching eye on the competition’s stats, and that interprets survey data with rigor and context. When done right, your brand tracking and consumer surveys become a trusted compass (not a misleading mirage) as you navigate towards brand growth.

In Summary

In the high-stakes arena of modern marketing, knowledge truly is power, and nowhere is that more evident than in competitor analysis. We’ve journeyed through how Australian brands are leveraging survey-driven insights to fuel their strategic brand growth. From supermarkets tracking consumer trust and value perceptions amidst a price war, to savvy marketers benchmarking their ad campaigns against rivals, the narrative is consistent: the brands that actively measure and compare are the ones that adapt and thrive. They’re the Coles spotting a shift in shopper sentiment and adjusting course, the nimble FMCG player finding a niche through perception gaps, or the banking giant fine-tuning campaigns based on competitive ad awareness rankings. These companies recognise that brand health is relative. Winning isn’t about improving in isolation, it’s about outpacing your competition in the metrics that matter, be it trust, preference or engagement.

For senior marketers, the takeaway is clear. You can’t control what your competitors do, but you can control how informed and prepared you are to respond. Survey-based brand tracking and benchmarking give you that insight edge. They allow you to manage your brand proactively, reinforcing consumer trust before it cracks, seizing opportunities when a rival slips, and validating which strategies truly move the needle. In a landscape where consumer loyalty is hard-won and easily lost, these insights are the closest thing to a playbook for staying ahead.

Is your brand equipped with this level of competitive intelligence? If not, it may be time to invest in a more rigorous brand tracking program or to delve into fresh consumer perception research. Brand Health is here to help. We specialise in turning data into actionable strategies, providing tailored competitor benchmarking and continuous tracking to keep your brand in pole position. Don’t fly blind or rely on hunches when market dynamics shift, let data-driven insights light the way.

Ready to strengthen your brand’s competitive footing? Join forces with Brand Health for insight-led competitor analysis that drives real growth. Whether you need to benchmark your brand’s performance, diagnose where you stand in consumers’ hearts, or measure the true impact of a campaign, our team of experts will work with you to uncover the story in the data and plot the right course forward. In the battle for trust and consumer preference, consider us your dedicated ally. Let’s ensure your brand not only competes, but leads, powered by the clarity that only great insights can provide.