The Assumption
A few years ago, Stella Artois rebranded its premium lager. When creating this showcase, we assumed that the brand team behind Stella Artois defined following brand associations during the rebranding exercise:
- ‘Belgian’
- ‘Quality’
- ‘Taste’
- ‘Perfection’
In this showcase, we replicate how these new brand associations are validated using Mindspeller’s AI and how they could be brought alive in new marketing communications to be launched after the repositioning.
Note that this showcase was developed in a matter of hours, whereas the branding concepts and communications of Stella Artois were developed over the years.
The Solution
Step 1: Explorer
When repositioning, we advise our clients to focus merely on 1 or 2 new brand associations to be successful. We queried Mindspeller AI to come up with a concept that could cover this assumed wish list. Combining concepts like ‘Classy’ or ‘Fancy’ with ‘Food’ seems like an interesting avenue to resonate with the trending ‘foodie’ segment.
When entering these concepts into our Mindspeller rebranding AI navigation system ‘Pathfinder’. The below graph illustrates how our Mindspeller Explorer application provides inspiration to fine-tune your Intended Association for framing your brand (see output below).
Step 2: Association Wheels
But let’s first quickly take a look at some Points of Interest (POI’s) circling the position of the brand in Mindspeller’s neural map compared to the concept ‘fancy food’ as suggested Intended Association.
We can clearly spot some interesting semantic connections between the two, so with ‘fancy food’ it seems like we may have an interesting candidate Intended Association as ‘destination’ input for Mindspeller’s storyline Pathfinder.
Step 3: Neuropositioning check
We will first perform a quick sanity check by benchmarking the semantic or ‘psychological’ distance we may need to cover to reach this Intended Association in the minds of the target consumer for the Stella brand.
Mindspeller neuro-positioning radar chart confirms that Stella already has significant headway on its shortlisted Intended Associations compared to one of its main competitors, Heineken.
Assuming concepts related to ‘environment’ (like ‘green’) might be more of an intended association for the Heineken brand, the Mindspeller neurometrics confirm that this is indeed the only concept on which Heineken is scoring higher than Stella (when plotting against Stella’s assumed intended associations). A higher score means that the concepts are already semantically closer to each other in the consumer minds, meaning it is likely to require less marketing budget to trigger these intended associations over time.
To benchmark our neuro-metric scores, we can easily compare scores with some hallmark brands like ‘Nespresso’ that might serve as a reference point for scoring against intended associations of interest.
Step 4: Pathfinder
Now we’re ready to explore some potential storylines that could have served as a briefing for our creative agency. By connecting some of the nodes shown in the upper right hand quadrant of Mindspeller’s pathfinder, it only takes us a few minutes to draft a first narrative.
With Pathfinder, we have now created the gist of a potential campaign storyline: “The age of Beer and Cheese has finally arrived. Stella Artois crisp, refreshing finish makes it a perfect pair with rich, creamy cheeses, such as brie. Serve your next cheese plate with a lager that’s been ready for this day for quite some time.” which we can further optimize with Copy Optimizer (see screenshot below).
Notice how we can even fine-tune the emotional tone of voice by adding simple concepts like ‘smiling’. Copy scoring on the 3 scientifically validated emotional scales presented below the Copy Scoring bar charts; Valence (positive or negative), Arousal (high or low) and Dominance (dominant vs subordinate) reveal the emotional profile of your copy. We even factor in the imagery used in your marketing communication!
The Impact
Proof-of-Concept
Now let’s take a look at the campaign material that was actually used by the Stella brand over the last 5 years or so.
Indeed we see that the Stella marketing team came up with a similar campaign narrative compared to the one Mindspeller’s AI suggested. The difference being, that it takes Mindspeller a few hours to come up with the storyline and gives us peace of mind knowing that the briefing is substantiated based on the latest consumer neuroscience insights.
Interested to start augmenting your intuition with Mindspeller?
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