MMR believes that tracking studies must be designed carefully to meet key criteria.  Tracking studies should:

1. Measure the right variables.  Tracking studies should provide information essential to identify the opportunities for growth, and should also monitor progress against growth goals.  To do so, they should measure variables that are most important to future growth.
2. Provide a leading indicator. Tracking studies should provide leading indicators of a brand’s health and growth prospects.  Even before market share and revenue numbers reflect growth or decline, tracking studies can measure indicators such as brand image or customer satisfaction that foreshadow upcoming changes in a brand’s market position.
3. Track performance reliably over time.  Tracking studies should also provide a foundation to measure how brands, consumers, and markets are changing over time. To do so, they must be anchored in the key fundamentals that provide reliable measures over time. Question order and phrasing should be changed cautiously lest the measures change, but there are times when needs for new types of information drive reasonable changes in tracking studies.

MMR typically starts tracking studies with a benchmarking study to determine which variables to measure and to gather baseline measurements.

Contact MMR to learn more.