In brief
- In a competitive market, Vision Express needed reliable ongoing insight into customer perceptions
- Since 2010, Clusters has run a regular brand and advertising tracking study
- The tracker is used by the Vision Express marketing team to aid strategic decisions and give a voice to optical customers
- Vision Express has benefited from an ever-growing rich dataset from which to identify trends and prompt specific actions
Challenge
Vision Express is one of the UK’s leading opticians and retailers for spectacles and contact lenses. Faced with an extremely busy marketplace and two significant competitors, Specsavers and Boots Opticians, Vision Express must continually ensure the company is making the best strategic business decisions in order to maintain its position and share of the marketplace.
James White, Head of Brand Promise at Vision Express explains, “As the marketing team for Vision Express, it’s critical we continually listen to consumers to understand perceptions of our brand, as well as those of our competitors. On-going tracking of consumer opinion aids strategic decisions that aim to grow our brand strength in a highly competitive market.”
Solution
In 2010, Vision Express appointed Clusters to run a brand and advertising tracker that provides a detailed view of how Vision Express and their key competition are perceived by consumers. The tracker is based on the careful measurement of key values and attributes applicable to both Vision Express’s own customers, and those of competitors.
These include measures and KPIs such as:
- Brand awareness
- Satisfaction
- Value for money
- Trust
- NPS (likelihood of recommending to others)
- Post sale experience and perception
- Brand values
- Advertising effectiveness
The tracker also provides insight on how Vision Express advertising is received: do people recognise it, like it, who do they attribute it to, what does it say about the brand and how compelling is it? Chris Cowan, Managing Director of Clusters commented, “Running the tracker at regular intervals each year, Vision Express is able to carefully monitor these attributes over time, and crucially, be aware of any important changes which could have an impact on the Vision Express business. Clusters also provide Vision Express with a dashboard interface which allows our client to quickly and easily access the ever-growing database and to perform analyses that provide useful insight and enhance decision-making.”
Results
James White explains, “Clusters’ brand and advertising tracker ensures the voice of optical customers is heard in our business: their opinion and perception of both us and our competitors. We as the marketing team are the customer champions; with insight from the tracker we are guided to make considered business decisions which help keep our customers happy and engaged with the Vision Express brand”
Commenting on the relationship, James White added, “Clusters are the perfect partner for this type of project. Rather than being an anonymous research machine, Clusters are a close-knit team – I know and work closely with all of them. As well as having a well-rounded view of marketing as a discipline, the added benefit of working with Clusters is our longstanding and close relationship. They know our business really well, and easily understand what matters most to us.”
