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Here's How To Use Analytics To Tell A Brand Story

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This article is more than 9 years old.

This article is by Kathy Collins, CMO, H&R Block .

When we think about great branding, great campaigns or taglines, everything from Southwest's "You are now free to move about the country" to Citi's "Live Richly," immediately come to mind. However, great branding goes way beyond a slick slogan. During my more than 20 years in marketing, I have been amazed at how analytics has taken on a much more powerful and transformative role in shaping a great brand story.

It used to seem futuristic if we could get to the “neighborhood” level to understand the most basic truths about our audience. For example, this neighborhood consists of “Caucasian, middle-class families with an average household income of $50,000, average family size of four. They tend to watch six hours of television a week and have a dog.” Today, analytics are so sophisticated; it’s more like “in Apartment 2A, there is a 24-year-old, single African-American male who works eight hours a day in the tech industry. He spends 12 hours a week on a specific set of websites and eats at these restaurants six times a week."

But even with cutting-edge technology and analytics, data alone is meaningless. You have to assume that all your competitors most likely have the same data. Therefore, it’s about pairing that data with industry, demographic and life-stage trends, leveraging your brand power and then putting it all together in an exclusive, believable brand story. We have to put something in front of consumers that they haven’t yet realized they need or want.

In developing H&R Block’s “Get Your Billion Back America” promotion this year, we enlisted the expertise of our research and analytics team, with the support of The Tax Institute at H&R Block, an elite team of tax attorneys and CPAs, who spent last summer analyzing our data. They learned that last year, nearly one-half of all tax returns prepared by do-it-yourselfers (DIYers) contained inaccuracies.

Digging a little deeper, they also learned that about half of those folks with inaccuracies were entitled to a larger refund (or smaller liability).  Carrying the math out, we found that people were leaving more than $1 billion in unclaimed refunds on the table. Even more compelling - that is more than $1 billion in just one year. To this data, we layered our vast knowledge and insights about what consumers care about most - getting it right and getting back everything they deserve -  leading us to the creative approach. One month after the promotion launched, three-fourths of Americans could recite the tagline, and 90 percent associated it with H&R Block.

In my career, we have used all types of research and analytics-based tools to better understand our consumer targets. It doesn't matter whether it has been financial services or retail clothing. The need for consumer insights is critical. Personally, I prefer to start with qualitative research and couple it with quantitative surveys and methods, including segmentation, trackers, experiential satisfaction studies and concept testing.

When I was at Lee Jeans, consumer segmentation was integral for product and message development. What was paramount to both men and women was comfort; however, the interpretation of comfort differed greatly across the segments. For one segment of men, it could mean "nothing tight or binding;" for another it was more about "making my butt look good." Women may say "comfort" is key, but comfort may actually mean (to one segment of the population), "it's an acceptable brand, so I'm safe and comfortable in knowing that I look good. No one will judge me." Multiple meanings of one word is something we cannot always get from a quantitative survey.

At Lee, this insight led to new sub-brands, such as “One True Fit” for women that appealed to the status criteria. For men, we created Lee Dungarees targeted toward young men, looking for durability, comfort and fashion, without breaking the bank. In both cases, the sub-brands broke the barrier of "wearing my mom's (or dad's) jeans." Lee Dungarees was one of our biggest successes growing the segment around 100 percent during three years in the late 1990s.

It’s no secret that research and analytics techniques are becoming more sophisticated.

But with all the advances, it still comes down to a healthy dose of the intangibles – knowledge, experience, intuition, a big creative idea, and yes, sometimes luck. You still need to interpret the data to break through the clutter and deliver a brand story that lives for years – or at least beyond the current season.