Yes. That makes perfect sense. Measure the DV that is the aim of the actual advertising, not the confirmation that advertising inf act occurred. I suppose this is the difference between accounting (read: trust but verify through reporting) and actual analytics (read: exploring the relationship between an observed effect, and attributing cause).

There’s a double chain here.

Now…if there was only a way to make the link.

(And I don’t believe a single bronze bullet question like NPS is enough!)

I’m excited for this challenge, sir.

Here’s the way I look at above, should it be useful.

For some time a brand was an “image”, what you thought of / felt when you heard the word “BMW”, “Nair”, etc. This was appropriate for a business model when broadcasting ruled and the game was essentially to create “personal badges” around the use of products.

I’d argue since the advent of so much direct communication with consumers one-on-one, brand is no longer “what you say” it’s “what you do”, and proof or evidence of brand is being plastered all over the web.

So today, when one gets to the measurement of success in “brand advertising”, things are less complicated, because measurement of brand is more about the success of the advertising (lift) than measuring the intangibles of brand image and so forth. You could say most consumers discount much of “what you say”, so what is left of the ad impact is Awareness, Intent, Desire and so forth – not image. Image comes from “what you do”.

In direct, since the relationship has always been one-on-one, most folks have always followed the “brand is what you do” model since they did not have a choice – that’s the model. Thus the practice of listening to and responding to customer feedback that has always been a hallmark of direct, way before there was an Internet or a web.

Therefore: If you want to measure pure Brand, the image, don’t measure advertising, measure reputation / service / satisfaction.

Make any sense?

It’s about what to leave in and what to leave out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkNjJkELLVY