With marketing budgets under scrutiny, CMOs have to ensure their strategies are geared toward growth. Yet, in an age of intense competition and channel fragmentation, the best approach isn't always clear. The key to unlocking the way forward could be brand equity, according to a recent Kantar report.

“One of the distinctions of the brand blueprint that we've created…is it looks across years worth of data. So when you look at brand growth, you truly can understand before, middle and after and that helps you come up with a prescription for what the right methods to drive brand growth would be,” said James Potter, chief brand solutions officer at Kantar North America.

Kantar’s “Blueprint For Brand Growth” report broke the data into two parts: attitudinal and purchase. The attitudinal bucket included 5.4 billion data points and encompassed 21,000 brands, 540 categories and 54 markets. The purchase bucket included 1.1 billion data points and encompassed 20,000 brands, 100 categories and 25 markets. Data was collected over 10 years.

The findings suggest a three pronged approach when it comes to brand growth: predisposing more consumers to a brand, being more present in the consumer lifecycle and exploring new spaces for growth.

Finding meaning (and difference)

Market penetration remains at the heart of brand growth, per the research. However, reaching more target consumers is easier said than done. With more options available to consumers than ever before, making a brand stand out is key. Meaningful differentiation pays off even more, with five times the market penetration today than those who have not meaningfully differentiated themselves.

Meaningful differentiation boils down to building stronger emotional and functional connections with consumers. Building this difference can help predispose consumers to a brand, thus increasing purchase intent. Brands which consumers are more predisposed to have nine times higher volume shares of the market, two times higher price paid and four times the likelihood of value share, or making more money than the competition from a product.

“Being meaningful is actually addressing your consumer…if you're meaningful to the right consumers, the right buyers, that's going to set you up for success,” said Potter.

One of the key ways brands can build meaningful differentiation is by being present across all of the places where buying choices are being made, from search to websites to on physical store shelves. Those who are consistently present attracted seven times the number of buyers than brands that are present at just half of purchasing occasions.

Taking up space

One of the easiest ways to reach out to new consumers is by expanding into new markets. Another way is finding additional uses for existing products. Brands that are able to find new uses for their products have twice the chance for growth compared to other brands, per the research. Additionally, those who increase uses for a brand by 10% are able to drive 17% growth.

However, pushing into new spaces takes both time and effort. Proven methods include meaningful and differentiating innovation, expanded distribution and communication.

“You can imagine extending into new categories like Dove moving from soap into health care, skincare, because they had a product and a reputation and brand that could extend properly,” said Potter.