Using reputation measurement tools to confront increased competition.

Situation

One of the top U.S. chemical makers with a global reach and a heritage-rich name, Dupont wanted to better understand its brand reputation within a competitive context — in particular, against two category leaders, Dow Chemicals and United Technologies. Dupont also wanted data to support and optimize the brand’s impact on financial performance. Armed with this data, the brand felt it could better navigate increasing and aggressive competition, and successfully manage the brand into the future.

Solution

In order to gain an in-depth, trended view of current and historical brand data, CoreBrand conducted a CBV — CoreBrand Valuation. This report examined brand reputation (its Familiarity and Favorability ratings — Dupont’s Brand Power) and Brand Equity data, for both Dupont and 8 peers.

The benchmark valuation showed Dupont:

• Brand Power as mostly stable over time, but beginning to decline
• Had the highest Familiarity, but low — and declining — Favorability
• BEV was above average against both the CoreBrand database and peer group
• Communications spending was in the median of peer group, but declining over time

These findings indicated that Dupont might have been relying on its position as a “heritage” brand, while peers were growing their brands and becoming more aggressive. Recommendations were made for Dupont to take an active role in building positive perceptions of its brand to counteract building peer aggression.