Brand health measurement: Moving from vague to actionable

What the hell does ‘a brand for people like me’ mean? How can a brand be more ‘authentic’, ‘cool’ or ‘relevant’?

Anyone who has worked in research or marketing has probably puzzled over hazy brand health attributes like these and wondered how they can possibly be related to brand growth.

Even if we could agree what these attributes mean, they are just too vague to be actioned, by even the most determined marketer.

The rise of Category Entry Points

But thankfully, things are changing – there has been a quiet revolution in brand health research, as agencies and clients recognise that measuring attributes that directly link to revenue and profit is preferable to the same set of inane attributes that have been favoured for decades.

The first step has been agencies and clients embracing Category Entry Points (CEPs). These are the needs/prompts/contexts that push someone to make a purchase in a category.

They come in many guises but importantly are independent of brand – so they are not, for example, ‘I want a high-quality product’. Instead, they are contexts such as how you feel (e.g., thirsty, tired), what you are doing (e.g., just finished a gym session) or who you are with (e.g., friend, spouse, alone). In these contexts, I might think of a sports drink such as Gatorade, an energy drink such as Red Bull, or even coffee.

The simple idea is the more CEPs a brand is associated with (especially the more common CEPs applicable in a category), the more likely it will be chosen when a consumer wants to buy, and hence the more sales it will produce, all other things being equal.

We have people like Byron Sharp and Jenny Romaniuk from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute to thank for this thinking, but despite the concept being well over a decade old, it has taken a long time for it to catch on in the marketing and research worlds, despite its intuitive logic and clearer path to action.

Action-oriented

To demonstrate CEPs’ ability to drive action, imagine you are a marketer.  Would you rather be charged with making your brand more ‘authentic’, or building associations with more usage occasions?

The former is mostly guesswork; the latter can be directly influenced through marketing communications that link the brand to new occasions.

A great example of this is Aperol – while it has traditionally been associated with summer drinking occasions (e.g., beach, outdoor bars), in 2025 it sought to grow by positioning itself as ideal for après ski, through a global campaign that showed it being consumed in beautiful ski settings. Successfully being associated with both summer and winter drinking occasions has obvious benefits for sales.

Netflix is another example.  While its core has always been about satisfying needs through on-demand entertainment, it recognised that further member growth was possible by also catering for needs which are best satisfied through live entertainment (e.g., social connection). It hence has introduced live events, including wrestling, NFL and comedy.

This broadens Netflix’s appeal by building associations with more entertainment moments – for example, watching a major event in real time, alongside everyone else. This shared experience enables social connection and participation in cultural conversations, something on-demand content cannot deliver as effectively.

At 2CV we have been using CEPs in brand research for a long time (and now refer to the term more frequently, as clients become more familiar). Examples of them helping drive strategy and growth include:

• A video game company’s franchise satisfied gamers wanting in-depth and time-consuming gaming experiences, but not those who prefer shorter, easier and fun sessions; highlighting the need to introduce more casual titles to the product portfolio to win a larger share of gamers.
• A fashion store’s range being associated with workwear but not weekend wear, prompting it to use advertising featuring casual occasions to grow beyond workwear needs.
• A beer brand that was associated with nights out with friends, but not the more common occasion of drinking at home to relax, highlighting the need to consider what beer in their portfolio could be shaped to help them grow within this need.

These examples directly linked 2CV’s brand health research with client growth – pinpointing which CEPs to build or reinforce; all for the purpose of increasing the brand’s likelihood of being considered at the point of purchase.

What is means for researchers and marketers

The research and marketing worlds will only strengthen as CEPs are adopted more widely in brand health management – in-house marketing and insight teams are increasingly being challenged to bring more actionable and evidence-based approaches to their stakeholders, and a CEP approach ticks these boxes.

However, change in organisations is hard – many of our clients have told us that getting internal buy-in can be the hardest part of the journey in switching to a CEP-led approach, as this is still a ‘new’ approach for many.

To learn more about how we approach it, schedule a discovery call with our team today.