The effect of marketing strategies on brand recognition

Mortagage lenders were keen to get a better idea of what return on investment they were getting from their marketing expenditure. Clients were especially interested to know how marketing was increasing brand recognition and unprompted willingness to recommend. They also wanted to get a better handle on the specifics of their marketing and what channels were having the most effect.

In order to provide this insight BVA BDRC set up Project Mercury. Mercury uses multi-client quantative interviews amongst a randomly selected sample of active mortgage business writers to get their opinion on clients marketing material. We have been gathering feedback on marketing communications since 2007 to help lenders understand what makes a great campaign.

These monthly interviews allow clients to understand the relationship between marketing expenditure and the desired outcomes, in particular ‘unprompted willingness to recommend. Subscribers to Mercury can also use it to benchmark against competitors and review tactics being used across the industry in order to adapt their own strategies accordingly.

"Project Mercury is at the heart of our advertising analysis... Recently, understanding the differences between creative executions online and offline has been a key learning from Project Mercury - something which click thru analysis alone could not give us.
.....Project Mercury continues to be essential in ensuring our advertising delivers best value, whatever channel we are using. I would not hesitate to recommend Project Mercury as a research study that continues to deliver actionable findings."
Spencer Clarke, Senior Manager - Marketing Communications, Nationwide (Sep 2009)