kalahari.com has appointed full service market research and strategy business, Dashboard Marketing Intelligence, to measure the perceptions of the brand in the minds of the country’s shoppers.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Dashboard’s range of marketing intelligence tools and services are designed to provide clear direction in complex and fast changing environments. According to managing partner, Peter Searll, this is exactly what attracted kalahari.com to the company.

“South Africans are increasingly adopting online shopping as an alternative to mall trawling and fighting the super store crowds,” he said. “And, as more and more South Africans enter the connected economy, trend spotters are predicting a boom in online retail.

“Already at the forefront of online shopping, kalahari.com wants to ensure it remains well-positioned to ride this boom. Recognising that building its brand is key to its continued success, it is tapping into our myriad years of brand tracking expertise so that it can effectively measure the brand’s health on a regular basis and respond appropriately as it grows.”

Said Kalahari’s head of Brand & Communication, Kirby Gordon: “At kalahari.com, we work to put our customer at the core of all decisions that we make, and that includes decisions around our brand. To that end, we’re very excited to see what insights the Dashboard team will be able to provide us in the coming months.”

Dashboard’s customised brand tracking tool, BrandPower, provides powerful matrices and clear direction for brand custodians by measuring how the brand is currently performing in the minds of consumers, and the potential of the current position to impact future growth.

Key measures include mind share, brand evaluation and detailed assessment of the strength of brand relationships. Simple dashboards allow the custodian to view brand health at a glance, yet quickly dig deeper when more detail is required about which factors are enhancing the brand’s growth prospects and those which are holding it back.

“BrandPower is used in 20 countries all over Africa and in the Middle-East,” said Searll. “Benefits include being able to measure your brand in its competitive context and recognise your brand’s current market position and life-stage.

“Data can be collected via one of our automated channels such as online surveys or ATI, our award winning automated telephonic interviewing system, or traditional face to face or telephone interviewing.

“The output includes different layers of information – from one-number summaries to in-depth analysis and interpretation – allowing easy dissemination of information within your business.

“All this is crucial for kalahari.com as it looks to a future proliferated by thousands of online retail experiences. Only those who really understand how to track their online brands and respond accordingly will flourish.”