Nielsen Online’s Brand Association Map (BAM) is the latest power tool in Consumer-Generated Media (CGM) analysis. For brand managers, it delivers powerful insights into how consumers think and talk about your brand – from their vantage points, not yours. BAM provides simple, at-a-glance frameworks to understand key brand dimensions, including product attributes, messaging elements, competitive and category sets, and related concepts and themes.

A BAM can quickly and easily identify threat opportunity areas. You might discover, for instance, that hostile comments tend to circulate only around your brand, not your competitors. Or that the paid spokespersons/third parties with which you associate have certain negative or positive associations that were off your radar.

Who benefits from the Brand Association Map?
The BAM is unique because it adds relevance, elegance and value to multiple brand stakeholders, from marketing and research managers to the CEO.

• Marketers: Relevant key initiatives or product benefits
  
• Researchers: Are hot issues emerging that you’re not addressing in traditional qualitative research or surveys?
• Advertising Agencies: Is the BAM consistent with your strategic messaging and efforts to preserve and optimize brand equity? Does it uncover new opportunities?
• External Relations: Is the brand at risk? Does the map highlight vulnerabilities?
• Media Buyers: What reactions are surfacing in response to specific media or advertising campaigns, spokespersons and associations?

Putting the Map to Action

The BAM enables brand stakeholders and business executives to glean quick insights that are critical to brand health.

Examples include:

• Perform a quick, research-based “gut check” on brand equity to identify directional insights and guide subsequent intelligence investments
• Assess high-level competitive attributes and issues
• Quickly determine messaging elements to optimize brands in complex competitive environments
• Examine the language and brands associated with strategic issues

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