ImageMax – A New and Better Way to Measure, Interpret and Act on Brand Imagery

 

Last Fall we teased our 2013 Sawtooth Conference presentation on a new way to measure Brand Imagery – an analytical approach we call ImageMax.

We have also edited a shorter overview of the conference paper and made it available for download on our website here.   At Macro, we’re passionate about developing the value of research, particularly advanced analytics.  ImageMax is the result of our effort to improve the value of Brand Imagery measures.  As nearly all researchers know – Brand Imagery tracking is largely based on respondents rating brands independently on scales.  The scale type used, Likert, was originally developed in 1932.  Legacy brand trackers are part of marketing culture – longitudinal data that the brand team relies on as a key indicator for monitoring and gauging shifts in imagery.

However, nearly all researchers also know that Brand Imagery measured in the traditional way is typically bland – often flat across respondents, flat across brands, flat across time and suffers from two well-documented disadvantages – scale usage bias and brand halo.

ImageMax is a better approach.  Using a unique blend of Max/Diff, including “Animated Modified Brand-Anchored Max/Diff”,ImageMax is a proven approach in terms of:

•       Better inter-item discrimination
•        Better predictive validity
•        Fewer unacceptable responses
•        Elimination of both brand halo and scale usage bias

Overall – ImageMax offers a more detailed and actionable picture of Brand Imagery, adding value to expensive trackers that often lie unread or worse, unused.