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The Marketing Architects
The Brand Metrics That Matter with Kantar's Mary Kyriakidi
00:29:44
On average, brand equity accounts for over 30% of a company's value, yet most marketers still chase vanity metrics instead of measuring what drives real business results. This week, Elena, Angela, and Rob are joined by Kantar's Mary Kyriakidi to...
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- [00:00]
Mary Kiria Kitty
We know that by investing in these three dimensions, you will build your pricing power. And pricing power is gold. It's what lets you hold your price.
- [00:11]
Alena Jasper
Marketing Architects hello and welcome to the Marketing Architects, a research first podcast dedicated to answering your toughest marketing questions. I'm Alena Jasper. I run the marketing team here at Marketing Architects and I'm joined by my co hosts, Angela Voss, the CEO of Marketing Architects, and Rob DeMars, the chief product architect of misfits and machines. And we're joined by a special returning guest to the show, Mary Kiria Kitty. Mary is the global thought leader at Kantar where she shapes evidence based narratives that influence how the world's biggest brands grow. She's an award winning media executive and the driving force behind some of Kantar's most influential thinking, including the meaningful, different and salient framework backed by a master's from the London School of Economics and decades of experience leading global insight teams across media and brand strategy. Mary brings both creativity and commercial rigor to every conversation and we're excited to have her with us again today. Thanks for returning to the show, Mary.
- [01:05]
Mary Kiria Kitty
Oh God. Thank you, Elena, for inviting me and such a wonderful introduction. Thank you. I feel uplifted.
- [01:12]
Angela Voss
It's nice for me to meet you as well. I was not on your last episode and it sounds like you were born and did your career beginnings in Greece, if I have that correct. And I have a tendency to push put my foot in my mouth. And so I wanted to make sure I was on my best behavior. And I learned that if I were to wave hello with my fingers spread like this, that's a very bad thing. It wouldn't go down well, it would not go out. So I'm not going to do that. It's like the equivalent of saying go to hell.
- [01:43]
Mary Kiria Kitty
Is that.
- [01:44]
Rob DeMars
Do I have that correct?
- [01:44]
Mary Kiria Kitty
Yes. Yes. Many drivers do this to each other and many accidents happen at the back of it.
- [01:49]
Angela Voss
I'm saying hello to you with my.
- [01:51]
Mary Kiria Kitty
Fingers closed and I'm saying hello back.
- [01:56]
Alena Jasper
That's funny, I didn't know that. That's good to know if you're ever traveling to Greece.
- [01:59]
Unnamed Speaker
I feel like it should be avoided in some way between countries to have things like that, like it's just unintended and that should be illegal to have discrepancies like that.
- [02:09]
Angela Voss
My guess is it predates the hello that we have created as Americans. So I think we have to probably come up with a different.
- [02:17]
Unnamed Speaker
It's our fault. It's our fault.
- [02:20]
Mary Kiria Kitty
Well, you know what? Unless. Unless you do this with an angry face, and normally with sweat, it doesn't count. So you'll be all right. You'll be all right.
- [02:27]
Angela Voss
I'm like the middle finger. Because even if you smile with the middle finger, it's still not, not a good thing. Okay, got it.
- [02:34]
Alena Jasper
All right, well, Mary, thanks again for coming back on the show. We're back with our thoughts on some recent marketing news. Always trying to read our opinions and data research and what drives business results. And I'm going to kick us off, as I always do, with some research. And this was a very easy choice because Mary is joining us to talk about it today, which is Kantar's diary of a CMO report. And the premise is simple. If brand is one of your company's most valuable assets, why are so few marketers measuring it in ways that connect to financial performance? So across thousands of data points and seven clear lessons, the report lays out how the world's most effective CMOs are winning today. From aligning marketing with business outcomes to pricing with power and breaking past category ceilings. At the core is this meaningful, different and salient framework from Kantar, which links brand perception to commercial impact through metrics like pricing power, demand power, and future power. So if you're still chasing vanity KPIs or assuming all brand metrics are created equal, this report might change your mind. So, Mary, I wanted to start strong here with maybe a takeaway from the report that has gone a little bit viral. It strongly supports the power of meaningful difference to drive growth. And that's a bold position in a world where Ehrenberg Bass really argues for distinctiveness over differentiation. So would you mind unpacking the evidence that led Kantar to take that stance?
- [03:46]
Mary Kiria Kitty
Very happy to do so, Elena. So at Kantar, we believe that brands grow not just by being seen, but by being chosen, and often then chosen again. And that's where meaningful difference comes in, because it's not about being unique. It's about being perceived as leading in a way that matters to people. So our data shows that brands that are seen as both meaningful and different, they're five times more likely to grow their customer base. And they don't just show up in memory. They, they show up with purpose. They show up with a reason for people to pay attention to them and often to pay more to acquire them. Now, the Irma Bass Institute has done a brilliant job of reminding us that mental availability is a non negotiable thing. We're talking about distinctive assets. We're talking about logos, colors, taglines, and all of these help people remember brands. But here's the thing. Being noticed isn't the same as being preferred and then as being chosen. And our research across thousands of brands shows that distinctiveness alone explains around 25 to 30% of what makes a brand feel different. So the consumers would be saying, oh, it's well known, oh, it has an iconic symbol. The rest is emotional connection. It's the perceived leadership, is the sense of what the brand is for each one of us. And that's what drives, to mention one of the powers that you mentioned before. This is what drives pricing power, for instance, loyalty and long term value. So for me, actually it's not a debate. If we were to put it under an umbrella or something, it would be a duet. But because distinctiveness gets you into the room and then meaningful difference wins the conversation, that makes sense, I think.
- [05:46]
Alena Jasper
Andrew. Actually we've said that pretty much same thing on this podcast when we were talking about distinctiveness and differentiation. That distinctiveness gets you in the door. But then how can differentiation not matter once you're there?
- [05:58]
Mary Kiria Kitty
Yes. And the most successful brands, the reality is that they do both.
- [06:02]
Alena Jasper
Interesting. So not quite as dramatic as maybe it seems on LinkedIn.
- [06:05]
Unnamed Speaker
Sometimes that point of view, everything's binary on LinkedIn, right? Black or white.
- [06:12]
Alena Jasper
Speaking of brand perception, part of the report mentioned that it can account to up to 90% of a company's value. But a lot of marketers still struggle to tie your brand to your bottom line. So how does Kanto recommend that we can better quantify brand strength in sort of this financially more credible way?
- [06:28]
Mary Kiria Kitty
So you're very right. Calling out this brand perception can account for a huge share of a company's value. And this specific one, it's from the famous Coca Cola Cola case that we have in the diary CMO report that you mentioned before, analysts estimated that the brand alone made up to 90% of its market cap. But that is, I have to say, a rare case. So what we see being validated year after year in our brand Z data is that on average brand equity account for over 30% of a company's value. And that's a huge percentage, right? That's a very significant percentage because that's a third or of your business being tied to how people feel about your brand. So that's too valuable to leave it unmeasured. And the beauty of the brands e metrics is that they can be predictive. They are predictive. So if, let's say your demand power rises, then you know that your market share will tend to follow. If your difference or your meaningfulness drops, then that's a red flag for your future sales. And because these indicators move from before the financials, do they come before they act as an early warning system. And what we do, and I certainly do myself, we encourage marketers to integrate these powers, these dimensions, and then these powers into the dashboards, into the forecast, and treat them as any other business KPI. So let's say could be that your objective for the year, your target for the year is that I will grow my brand, my demand power, let's say by five points, because they know exactly what that means in terms of revenue, what increase in revenue they they would expect to see after that. So it's about managing brand as a financial asset, not just as a creative value. You see?
- [08:26]
Alena Jasper
Yeah. So you're saying is it on average a third of your business performance or how your business is tied to how.
- [08:31]
Mary Kiria Kitty
People perceive the average brand is 30%. And for the most successful brands, it can be over 50%. So the case of Coca Cola from the 90s, I believe it says so in the report. It's a striking 90%. But on average, the average brand, yes, accounts for a third.
- [08:49]
Alena Jasper
Feels important to bring that into the boardroom if you can.
- [08:53]
Mary Kiria Kitty
Absolutely, yeah.
- [08:54]
Alena Jasper
Well, you mentioned this framework a little bit. You've touched on it. But Kantar has this really, I think, helpful, meaningful, different and salient framework, or mds. It's central to the report and to how just Kantor as a whole approaches brand building. So could you walk us through that a little bit more detail and explain why it's important for driving brand growth? Why should marketers be aware of it?
- [09:13]
Mary Kiria Kitty
I often describe it as marketing magic. Obviously I'm a little bit biased, but I will, I'll try and explain it in a slightly poetic way and then I will explain the geeky way. Right. So the three layers of meaning, difference and salience explain what happens in the minds of people when functional benefits and emotional attachment overlap. So they're not just abstract ideas. They are the foundation of brand equity. We have demystified brand equity and we believe that when marketers understand how meaningful, different and salient their brand is, that's when they can diagnose their current position and shape what's going to come in the future. Now, from there, the action begins. Right? Because knowing that is not enough. And we released another report like a little longer than a year ago. That's a big report. Right. It's the blueprint for brand growth paper, many pages within that we Identify the three growth accelerators. We talk about predisposing more people, we talk about being more present and we talk about finding more space. And each one of those accelerators help brands turn perception, right, the meaningful differentials into performance. Whether it's about building predisposition to justify their price or showing up where the decisions are made, or stretching into new occasions, which is about finding new space. These are all paths to growth, that's what they are. And they are backed up by the metrics of demand power, by the metrics of pricing power and future power. And they are directly linked to commercial outcomes. So these powers are effectively made up by the coming together of the three dimensions of meaningful, different salience. What we are saying as an umbrella thinking is we need to start thinking of our brand and treating our brand as a value producing asset. Because if we use these metrics to guide our investment, then track the progress and we can unlock growth. Because when we build a brand that is meaningfully different and salient to more people, they don't just win hearts, they win the market share, they win the margin, they win the momentum. So many, many benefits will come from it. Not now, not just only now, but in the future as well.
- [11:33]
Alena Jasper
Would you mind breaking down a little bit more? Like if I had never heard of this framework before, like meaningful difference, salient how Cantor thinks about those three buckets.
- [11:41]
Mary Kiria Kitty
Meaningfulness is about meeting needs, functional and emotional needs. Salience is about coming to mind during a crucial moment during the time of purchase. And then difference is about being relatively different in your category. We're not talking about owning any wars, no one can. And even if we could only do it for a little bit of time, but we are talking about being a little bit more standing out a little bit more than another product, another brand in your category in a way that would break consumers expectations of parity. And you can do that via experiences that are different by product features that are different by connecting emotionally with consumers. But it's about offering that little bit more that make people think, oh, that's a special one for me and I'm willing actually to pay a little bit more for it as well and probably more frequently choose it when I see it on the shelf, you know, being showered with its distinctive assets.
- [12:47]
Alena Jasper
So am I, is my product meeting the need of a customer? Am I coming to mind in a buying situation? And then am I meaningfully different enough to stick around to have them purchase me more often, to have them value me more?
- [12:58]
Mary Kiria Kitty
Correct, correct. You do the three together, you run let's say over indexes in these three and bang, you will be chosen or you tilt the chances of you being chosen. You push them to the right direction.
- [13:12]
Alena Jasper
Another message in the report is that marketers, we often rush to promotions when growth slows and we kind of over index on one of the 5Ps I know Mark Ritson talks about that a lot. Marketers love promotions, but sometimes we neglect the other parts of what is marketing. So what does it look like when marketers take a more balanced approach and how does that change the outcomes that we achieve?
- [13:31]
Mary Kiria Kitty
Yes, in fact, the first chapter in the diary of a CMO report talks about because I used fictional characters this time and Carol gets a message from the top. And the top being the leadership group where they tell her that we need to do something to reverse the trend, the decline of our revenues. And of course the temptation is very real for Carol. She's thinking about it momentarily, right, that she should, should be reaching for promotions. But she knows very well from the past that it will only give her a quick uplift. The reality is that when growth slows, this is the temptation that's very real for all marketers. But promotions are like a sugar rush. We've seen it time and time again that they spike volume and they crush the margins. And the worst thing is that they train consumers to expect discounts and chip away at the very thing that makes our brand valuable, which is our equity. So we've seen brands many times unintentionally enter what we call it the, the spiral of doom. So it's a discount where you lose margin, then you cut investment, then you lose equity and then repeat. You're going into that circle of things and it's unsustainable and in fact it's self destructive as well. But it's very hard, it's very hard to, to rationalize things at that moment when you have to act. But the worst thing, actually, you know what the worst thing is that half of the people who buy on promotion would have bought anyway. So you're not anything, you're just giving away a lot. So to your question, the much better approach would be to reframe our brand again as a value producing asset. And that means investing in the three layers of brand equity, the ones that we mentioned before in it being more meaningful, more different, more salient. Because in this case you are neglecting the other bit. You're neglecting price in all likelihood and you're rushing to promotions because we know that by investing in these three dimensions you will build, you can Successfully build your pricing power. And pricing power is gold. It's what lets you hold your price even when there are shady microeconomics around us, even in inflationary times. And in fact our data shows that people are willing to pay up to double for brands with higher pricing power. And in fact there's another stat that is very interesting, that bargain hunters will pay 40% more for brands that they see as meaningful difference. So we shouldn't default to price, we should default again to value and look at our brand as a value producing asset.
- [16:17]
Unnamed Speaker
It's such a powerful insight, Mary, when you think about marketers just trying to do well by their role. All well intended. Just a simple tactic like pricing strategy. As you know from the work in this area, a decision around promotion and just pricing strategy in general is a really big decision. When you think of pricing power, you call it an attitudinal metric that shifts slowly but that ultimately shields a brand from price sensitivity. What have you learned about how brands actually build pricing power and what separates a brand that succeeds from those that don't? Practically, right. If they're struggling to hit their lead counts or hit their unit counts, what does that look like in the day to day?
- [17:00]
Mary Kiria Kitty
So it's a very good question. It's pricing power, first of all, it's just to be 100% clear. It's the ability to correct your price and lose less customers. Or if you can't lose any, then you have built a really strong pricing power and we can visualize it as a moat around our brand. Right. The stronger and the wider this mode is, then the more freedom we have as a brand, as a business to grow our profitability. Now, with regards to what builds it, if I was to speak in a very simple way, and going back to the three dimensions that we talked about before, our data shows that 94% of pricing power is driven by the two dimensions. By being meaningful and different. Salient plays a role, but less of a role. Now, what separates the brands that succeed from those that don't with regards to building their pricing power? It's not their size, it's not their budget, it's the ability to show clarity in everything that they do. Consistency and I'll actually say a fair amount of commitment. Because the brands that win are the ones that they know what they stand for. They show up time after time. And of course, you know, they do that even when it's tempting to chase short term gains to talk about promotions. McCain, for instance, when private labels started eating into their market share, they didn't panic, or at least not visibly. They invested in brand building. They celebrated, they continue to celebrate the real family tea times. And the result was an impressive 4 to 7% drop in price sensitivity and consumers price sensitivity and 44% rise in base sales. So they didn't just win by selling more to everyone, they won by making each sale more valuable. There are more examples. I mean, Magnum were faced with copycats and they launched their stick to the original campaign and they reminded people that only Magnum delivers that indulgent premium experience. And it worked. They had the best winter. Actually, it was launched in the winter. The best ever winter season in the UK specifically. Right. And not just premium brands. So Yorkshire, it grew from a regional player to a market leader by leaning into witty, consistent storytelling, not price cuts. We saw Nivea as well, thriving in skincare. Despite the cheaper alternatives, they actually believe they're worth it. You need to earn pricing power. It's not something you can claim this is not. Promotion is not going to get you that far. It's about being perceived as more valued. It's about being valued by consumers. Yes.
- [19:51]
Unnamed Speaker
Yeah, you can see how short termism and just being too reactive in general can be really damaging to a brand. We often talk about gaining credibility in the boardroom and I think a conversation around pricing strategy really helps us get there. But even more broadly, I'm curious what you've found to help a CMO gain credibility with the CEO, the CFO, or even the board when it comes to advocating for brand investment.
- [20:16]
Mary Kiria Kitty
You mentioned Mark Richten before and he talked about this in one of his articles and he stayed with me because he said that many CMOs are trying to talk the language of finance and then they end up presenting dodgy metrics and speculative returns. And in fact, they make their CFO more uncomfortable. And the irony is that they're going there because they want to sound credible using these things and they lose their credibility. So we've observed this as well. The marketers who succeed take a different path to that. They go beyond the typical advertising metrics. They look at the health of the business in a way that a CFO does, in a way that an investor does. And they use validated metrics like future power, demand power, pricing power that we mentioned before. And they show how their brand equity links directly to metrics like penetration, margin and future growth. And their mentality is not to walk in and defend their budgets. They are there to make a business case for growth. Right. And their deck doesn't have complexity because that's not going to make it gain credibility. They show with clarity how brand investment drives value creation. There you go. Value. We are coming back to value again. And that's the way they massively dial up the chances of being trusted in the boardroom by the versus rate.
- [21:42]
Rob DeMars
You mentioned that EFFIE winners are proof that you can do more with less. If your creative is strong. What defines effective creative in your data?
- [21:50]
Mary Kiria Kitty
There are three things, right? Effective creative does three things brilliantly. And these three things are it captures attention, it drives emotional engagement. And the third one is that it creates a strong, memorable link to the brand. So as you say, we've done a lot of work with fe. In fact, my colleague Siltova leads that partnership with Effis and we have analyzed many sets of award winning creative campaigns. And then at the same time we see exactly this, that they don't just come through because they show their distinctive assets every second of the way. They build that success through their tone, their storytelling and even a unique perspective that they present. And the brand is not just present, it is central to the experience. So what we see is that they tell a story, right? And the story can be traumatic, it can be funny, it can be deeply human. These are the campaigns that don't just win awards, they win attention, they win affection. And then ultimately they win the market share too.
- [22:51]
Rob DeMars
There's a powerful warning in the report that not all brand metrics are created equal. What are some of the most common missteps you see in brand tracking today?
- [23:01]
Mary Kiria Kitty
The first one for me is if you're choosing your brand metrics that don't actually reflects business performance because it's easy to get distracted by something that looks good on the dashboard, like instant awareness or social buzz. But you need to use those metrics that have a proven link to outcomes like sales, market share or pricing power. I'm mentioning it again. It's really important because it can help us make better decisions. Another problem is when they look at the brand data in isolation. Brand is just one part of the puzzle. We need to be connecting, I suppose the brand data with sales, with customer experience, with the data that comes from that. Because that's where the Google call it the messy middle. It's the say do gap. This is where the say do gap lives and the tension between what people think and what people do. So we need to put the light on that and figure out what to do next. And if I'm allowed, there's another common mistake that we often find advising our clients not to is that they Define their competitive set too narrowly. They track their brand performance within a tightly drawn category. We need to really think we're a toy. Are we competing for leisure time, too? Yeah, because that shifts the perspective and that changes everything from that point onward because you benchmark against whoever you have to find growth.
- [24:27]
Rob DeMars
Hey, Mary, we love a good contrarian opinion on this podcast. What's your most contrarian marketing opinion?
- [24:35]
Mary Kiria Kitty
I'm going to sound like a broken record, right? I suppose my most contrary opinion is that pricing power deeply matters, not just as a financial lever, but as a strategic signal of brand health. And yes, I've had my fair share of, I would call it friendly fire from Byron Sharp and those who challenge that view. But the thing is, that is not my opinion. It's the outcome of decades of empirical research. Thousands of brands, hundreds of categories across dozens of markets. Right. So it might sound contrarian in a world that often celebrates rich and salience alone, but I see it, we see it as complementary. Pricing power does not replace the fundamentals. It builds on them.
- [25:25]
Alena Jasper
Yeah. Mary, I am thinking about just what Rob just said, the start of this conversation, how we started off with something that could sometimes be a misunderstanding in marketing. And I like that we sort of clarified today that Kantar is not saying distinctiveness or Amber Bass principles are wrong. You're building on them and you're saying that they complement each other, which is, I think, sometimes something people misunderstand about the data and the reports that you share. So I wanted to wrap up with something a little personal but related. What's the perception people often get wrong about you, that you'd love to rebrand.
- [25:56]
Mary Kiria Kitty
Everyone thinks I'm an extrovert and that I feed on social media. But I'm gonna say to you, and this way, I'll say to the industry as well, and I was designed as an agoraphobic introvert. I find comfort in quiet corners and I avoid the spotlight, or I used to, anyway. Showing up online did not come naturally. It still doesn't. I take a lot of deep breaths like I do now, but I've learned to navigate it. I'm not naturally good at putting myself out there, as I often hear. I've worked really hard as it.
- [26:28]
Alena Jasper
I definitely. I resonate with that, too, Mary. And you, you don't come across that way.
- [26:32]
Unnamed Speaker
We're perhaps going to have a theme. I feel like I paid you to say that, just to soften mine a little bit. But I think, you know, as a leader of an agency, a thought leader in the space, you're expected to share a vision and engage people and talk, talk, talk on stage, here and there. And mine would be that quiet doesn't necessarily mean shy. In moments where I'm not speaking, I really like to listen. And it doesn't necessarily mean I'm. I don't want to talk to people, but.
- [27:04]
Angela Voss
Okay.
- [27:04]
Rob DeMars
Well, I guess for me, I come from the creative background and a lot of people think that I smoke the marijuana, and I have never actually smoked pot in my entire life. And people are oftentimes shocked that, you know, I don't smoke the trees.
- [27:21]
Alena Jasper
Okay, so, Rob, you're saying that you think there's a perception at large that you smoke weed.
- [27:26]
Unnamed Speaker
That's what you're saying.
- [27:28]
Rob DeMars
It can. It can shock folks.
- [27:31]
Mary Kiria Kitty
There you go.
- [27:32]
Alena Jasper
Great.
- [27:33]
Mary Kiria Kitty
Okay.
- [27:34]
Unnamed Speaker
Elena, what's yours?
- [27:35]
Mary Kiria Kitty
Yeah, I could bring us.
- [27:37]
Alena Jasper
I can bring us over here, please. Yeah, it's funny. Mine's kind of similar, just being someone who posts a lot on LinkedIn and stuff, assuming that you like attention or something like that. I actually hate attention. I like to avoid it whenever I can. But I think in. Mary, you and Ange, probably we all feel similarly, that sometimes you're brought into a career path and you have opinions and, like, your role just turns into something that's not natural to you. But I think that sometimes that can make you good at it, too, because you're able to, like, sit and observe and taking things personally can be hard. But I also think it makes you better at what you do because you are listening to feedback and trying to adapt. But I'm definitely jealous of people that can just throw stuff onto the Internet and just take it back. And maybe, maybe everybody's sensitive, but it seems like some people are better at that than others. Well, Mary, this was really fun. Thank you for coming on today. I have a lot of. A lot of great notes.
- [28:29]
Mary Kiria Kitty
Oh, thank you so much for saying that. It was an absolute pleasure. Thank you for inviting me again. And. No, I really. I really enjoyed my time with you.
- [28:37]
Alena Jasper
Love it, Mary. So we'll include a link to the report to your LinkedIn. Is there anything else you'd like to plug or, you know, where can people follow you? Learn more about Kantar and obviously read the report.
- [28:47]
Mary Kiria Kitty
You're doing everything that I would have suggested. So. No, that's it. Let's all add to the conversation in the most natural, friendly way. I will add that, actually, because sometimes it gets really heated out there and I probably don't handle it because I stay quiet or I say one thing, but I don't like to get involved, but I just find that there's a lot more for all of us to learn if we put forward our ideas as something that our data has led us to believe without attacking anyone.
- [29:22]
Unnamed Speaker
Thanks so much, Mary.
- [29:25]
Alena Jasper
That's it for this episode of the Marketing Architects. We'd like to thank Taylor de Los Reyes for producing the show. You can connect with us on LinkedIn, and if you like the podcast, please leave us a review. Now go forth and build great marketing Marketing Architects.