SINGAPORE: PropertyGuru, the Singapore-based real estate site, claims to have increased its media effectiveness by almost one third through the adoption of a continuous measurement approach to brand equity.

Working with PHD, it has developed a program termed Brand Equity Attribution Modelling (BEAM), which correlates media channels to a Brand Query Index (BQI).

The BQI measures how often “PropertyGuru” appears as a keyword – relative to its competitors – in searches that contain brand names. A higher BQI means more people are searching for the group’s sites by name, thus indicating higher brand awareness.

Since every month PropertyGuru sees an average of 17m property seekers through its various portals and handles more than 700,000 sales enquiries, it regards brand visibility as being of vital importance.

“By applying [these] principles, we have been able to increase media effectiveness by 20% to 30% per market,” Bjorn Sprengers, chief marketing officer of PropertyGuru, told Campaign Asia-Pacific – and this while budgets have remained stable.

“Per channel, we now understand how much we need to invest to get a maximum yielding impact on brand equity,” he explained.

An optimal media plan can then be set on the basis of the best combination of channels and investment levels, which has enabled PropertyGuru to also cut brand spend wastage in addition to increasing media effectiveness.

Sprengers said the approach could work across industries and verticals but would require a culture shift in organisations.

“I’d say the genesis of this change is also embedded in the way we believe and do things at PropertyGuru,” he said. “We work with a growth mindset, where we are unafraid to question conventions and experiment newer solutions that can make us more impactful.”

Sourced from Campaign Asia-Pacific, PHD Singapore; additional content by WARC staff