Your Questions Answered

BAV has been in the WPP family since the Y&R acquisition. It is the longest running and largest consumer study of brands and Brand Equity in the world. It contains 14 billion data points covering 50 countries and some 62,000 brands both big and small.

BAV has impressive industry and academic credentials, developed with academic partners at Columbia Business School, MIT and the University of Washington. BAV now works with leading institutions including London Business School, Wharton Business School, and the University of California.

The switchover from BrandZ to BAV will commence on the 6 April 2021, and over the months that follow many new developments and additional services from BAV will be launched. The products will all focus on helping WPP colleagues and companies grow their business and client relationships.

WPP has, for many years, had within it two significant brand analytics and understanding tools. BrandZ, which was a shared resource across most of WPP group companies with the research and analysis provided for the group by Kantar, and BAV which was part of the VMLY&R group of companies and operated within VMLY&R.

With the sale of 60% of Kantar to Bain Capital, the new strategic vision of WPP and the desire for as much simplification as possible within the group, now is an appropriate time to move to a single source of brand analytic data across the group.

As a result, BAV will become the exclusive across WPP analytics tool available to all WPP colleagues, irrespective of company.

Very simply, you will be served with a more comprehensive Brand Knowledge platform than ever before. With more coverage, more facts, more insights, more digital and better ways of accessing the data. Without doubt, BAV will be the best, largest and most insightful brand analytic platform.

A platform that will set new standards for brand understanding and insight.

Exclusive to WPP, no other agency group will have a brand analytics platform that compares.

To create the most advanced and digital brand analytics platform on the planet–powered by BAV data and insights.

Empower brand-based insights to enable more effective creative transformation for our clients. Make use of, and expand all our digital tools, AI, and expertise that we have developed within BrandZ and that are being used across the globe. Fuse all the digital tools with BAV data sets and create innovative new ones.

Be the industry headliner with our digital expertise and creativity in making data more accessible and engaging for all.

Yes. This won’t happen all at once on launch day but progressively over the course of 2021. We have many innovations planned already and more in discussion with WPP companies. There are some great ideas that we will be looking to implement.

If you have ideas of what more could be useful to you… we’d love to hear them.

Please email [email protected]

Without going into detailed technical research methodology issues…at the core, both studies are high quality and reliable data bases that originate from preparatory continuous consumer research which helps us understand how consumers view individual brands. Both have been going for many years so there is much current and historic data.

The big difference is how each study asks the consumer to rate the brand. With BrandZ it is within the context of the category that the brand operates in.

With BAV it is category-agnostic, so questions are asked without reference to the category. With more brands operating across categories, within ecosystems and the significant blurring of what really defines a category, being category-agnostic will be a significant advantage.

We have created an advisory group with representatives from the major WPP companies to get their help, advice and counsel. This will also ensure that any specific requirements from individual companies can be answered.

These changes will take place from the 6th April 2021.

From the 6th April the current BrandZ access tools will no longer be available to WPP colleagues globally. From that point, BAV will be accessible to everyone across WPP.

Absolutely. To get most out of BAV and feel confident using its analysis it is important that you fully understand it. WPP has created the virtual “BAV Academy” (the site you’re on right now).

The Academy will open for training 24×7 on the 6th April. This includes web seminars, a certificated module based self-training course in 6 languages, videos and a virtual helpdesk.

For all WPP company colleagues a new self- service automated BAV brand insight platform will be available from the 6th April via the BAV Portal 24/7×365.

For all WPP company colleagues a new self- service automated BAV brand insight platform will be available via the BAV Portal 24/7×365.

To access the data all you will need to do is select the brand and the country you want and the smart system goes to work. It will instantly create analysis, relevant insights and produce a presentation-ready PDF deck that you can download.

At launch on the 6th April, the analysis will cover Brand Equity and Brand Personality. More brand analysis storylines will be added over the coming months including a replacement for “PitchDoctor” to create a comprehensive suite of BAV analytics insights.

You should go to the BAV Portal. Everything can be accessed via this and we will be adding new content regularly.

Yes, anyone who works for a WPP company will have access to BAV data via the BAV Portal and from inside WPP.

Yes, when requested by WPP companies, specific BAV bespoke analysis decks will be created and made available for download to those people in that operating company.

Full access to the base BAV data will be available for WPP company data scientists and analysts in an excel form.

You can submit a request here.

They will be available but re-written and extended to cover more insights through BAV data. These will be available from September 2021. We are also looking at using Graphic Novel storytelling for other BAV Brand storylines.

To help you instantly find which brands are covered in BAV, in which countries and when, we have created a Brand Look-Up tool.

From 6th April this will also be accessible via the BAV Portal.

Yes. BAV has a long history going back 28 years. Historic brand data will be available for you to do any in-depth analysis you need. This is one of the many unique powers that this data set has.

Yes, BAV data will be available on WPP Open.

Kantar will continue producing BrandZ brand valuations but WPP will not be participating. BAV are creating a new series of innovative and engaging category-agnostic brand ranking metrics. Not based on brand financial valuations. More about this in June.

Yes, there will be an API that you can use to integrate BAV data directly into your tools and workflow. This will not be available at launch, but soon after.

The full set of BAV current data will be available from 6th April 2021.

From an individual user perspective there will be no charge to you. Please use it extensively.

We will be undertaking a significant program of activity within the industry, key opinion leaders, academics, business leaders and the media. Expect to see and hear a lot about BAV in the coming months.

Whilst BrandZ covered more countries than BAV, BAV covers significantly more brands. BAV will be investing this year in increasing the BAV country coverage. To find out if the brands you are interested in are covered in BAV just go to the BAV Brand Look-Up tool.

We will be creating a Microsoft Teams community for all things BAV and brand understanding. It will be available for everyone at WPP. We hope that this will be a thriving user focused community.

The best place to go is the BAV Portal.

If you have any specific questions please get in touch.