Harris Poll: Driving Enterprise Value with Brand Momentum: A Modern Playbook for CX and Marketing Leaders

Consumer behaviors are shifting rapidly, and the traditional approach to brand equity is no longer sufficient. Senior marketing and CX leaders face increasing pressure to demonstrate the value of brand investments with greater speed and precision. While long-term brand strength remains important, a forward-looking metric is essential to capture the real-time dynamics of public sentiment and market movement.

“Momentum can be enhanced by appealing to the right emotions,” said Paul Johnson, Vice President of Advanced Analytics at the Harris Poll. “Those emotions can differ across industries as well as by the specific brand. Knowing which emotional levels to pull can give brands the edge they need in competing for consumer’s valuable attention.”

QuestBrand, by The Harris Poll, introduces Brand Momentum as a leading indicator of brand performance. It measures the direction and intensity of public sentiment, revealing whether a brand is on the rise, holding steady, or losing ground. This real-time metric captures how perception is changing, often before shifts in sales, market share, or even long-term loyalty become apparent. Understanding and actively managing Brand Momentum is critical for enterprise leaders looking to future-proof their brands and accelerate growth in a highly competitive landscape.

Momentum as a Strategic Imperative

Brand Momentum is more than a vanity metric; it is an early signal system for a brand’s health and future trajectory. Unlike traditional brand equity metrics, which provide a snapshot of long-term strength, momentum reflects real-time movement and cultural resonance.

The QuestBrand Momentum Score, derived from a single core question—“Based on what you’ve seen, read, or heard, is this brand on the way up, holding steady, or on the way down?”—provides actionable insights:

• 25%+ (Above average): Indicates accelerating perception, characterizing category leaders who are capturing cultural relevance at scale.
• 10-24% (Average): Represents brands connecting emotionally, often growth brands consumers want more from.
• 0-9% (Below average): Points to plateauing excitement or stagnant innovation, common in mature brands with high awareness but low dynamism.

Several key shifts underscore the strategic imperative of Brand Momentum for enterprise leaders:

• Competitive Metric in Real-Time: Brands are now judged on their movement, not just their static awareness or market share. Momentum has become the “market share of the mind,” changing daily. This necessitates continuous monitoring and agile responses from marketing and CX teams.
• High-Velocity Moments and Social Amplification: Traditional slow-burn campaigns are being superseded by reactive, culture-driven moments. Social media platforms such as TikTok, Reddit, and X act as momentum accelerators, where a single influencer mention or cultural controversy can rapidly ignite buzz or undermine trust within hours. For example, American Eagle’s Sydney Sweeney campaign generated 40 billion impressions and a 26% premarket stock jump.
• Generational Shifts and Cultural Alignment: Younger cohorts, including Gen Z and Gen Alpha, are driving faster swings in Brand Momentum due to their digital fluency, cultural literacy, and values-first lens. Brands must align with youth expectations to maintain relevance. Beyond size or legacy, cultural alignment and authentic representation now beat category leadership. For instance, Barbie’s inclusion of a Type 1 diabetes doll drove widespread media coverage and brand momentum across parent and health-conscious audiences.
• Link to Business Outcomes: QuestBrand data consistently demonstrates that Brand Momentum precedes real-world key performance indicators (KPIs) such as revenue growth, customer acquisition, and stock price movement. It serves as an early signal for effective marketing and product strategy, indicating a halo effect from recent wins and becoming top-of-mind for key consumer cohorts.

Summary: For senior leaders, Brand Momentum is a forward-looking metric that transcends traditional brand equity. It demands continuous attention to real-time public sentiment, cultural relevance, and the impact of both internal and external factors on brand perception.

Operationalizing Momentum: Drivers and Actionable Strategies

To effectively manage Brand Momentum, enterprise leaders must understand its drivers and implement proactive, data-informed strategies. The specific emotional and functional attributes driving momentum vary by industry and audience segments. For example, in Automotive, attributes like “Trustworthy” and “Dependable” resonate across generations, while “Innovative” and “Intelligent” appeal more to high-income segments. In Dining, “Customer Centric” and “Good Value” are critical, while in E-commerce, “Dependable” and “Innovative” are key drivers.

QuestBrand outlines six actionable steps for brand leaders to build and sustain momentum:

1. Diagnose Your Current Standings: Implement always-on brand tracking to spot shifts in perception. Focus on early indicators of rising, plateauing, or declining momentum, and benchmark performance against competitors to assess cultural relevance and share of voice. Treat momentum as a lead indicator for where your brand is heading.
2. Identify Momentum Levers: Prioritize initiatives proven to drive consumer response. These include product or service launches that meet unmet needs, campaigns that stir emotion and spark conversation, partnerships that build community, and purpose-driven actions that resonate with consumer values.
3. Connect Action to Emotion: Functional benefits alone are insufficient. Accelerate momentum by pairing actions with emotional resonance. Tell the story behind initiatives, use cultural insights to shape creative messaging, and tie product benefits to aspirational outcomes such as freedom or belonging.
4. Move Fast, Track Impact: In a culture-first environment, speed is essential, but it must be paired with insight. Utilize real-time tools to monitor shifts in equity, awareness, and sentiment. Conduct post-campaign diagnostics to understand what moved the needle and confirm causation through driver analysis, rather than assuming correlation.
5. Build Across Cohorts: Recognize that different demographic segments respond to different drivers. Segment tracking data by generation, region, or psychographics. Target messaging based on what matters most to each group, such as innovation for Gen Z versus dependability for Gen X. Validate hypotheses with insight communities or DIY testing.
6. Sustain Momentum, Avoid Spikes and Fades: Brand Momentum is a compound effect. Sequence actions over time, ensure internal teams are aligned on the brand narrative, and integrate earned media, influencer relations, and customer advocacy as core components of your momentum engine.

What to do:

• Implement Continuous Tracking: Deploy systems for real-time brand health monitoring (e.g., QuestBrand’s daily refreshed data on 1,000+ brands).
• Align Cross-Functional Teams: Ensure marketing, product, CX, and corporate communications are all working with a shared understanding of momentum drivers and brand narrative.
• Invest in Emotional Resonance: Develop campaigns that tap into identity, aspiration, or belonging.
• Proactively Engage Advocacy: Empower passionate fan communities and leverage influencers to amplify positive sentiment.
• Benchmark Against Competitors: Regularly assess your brand’s momentum relative to industry peers and category norms.

What to avoid:

• Sole Reliance on Lagging Indicators: Do not wait for quarterly earnings reports or annual brand trackers to understand brand health.
• Assuming Correlation is Causation: Use driver analysis to confirm the impact of specific initiatives on momentum.
• Neglecting Cultural Nuance: Avoid one-size-fits-all global campaigns; manage momentum regionally with culturally relevant insights.
• Ignoring Internal Actions: Understand that leadership changes, layoffs, or policy shifts can directly impact external brand perception.
• Optimizing for a Single Metric: Focus on a balanced view of momentum drivers, not just immediate sales or awareness.

Case Study: Toyota’s Sustained Momentum (Momentum Score: 39%) Toyota accelerated momentum through a multifaceted strategy. It blended product innovation (2025 4Runner, RAV4 with Arene software, EV expansion globally) with culturally relevant campaigns (NFL “All In. All Season.” activation, Super Bowl experiential marketing). Toyota also built credibility through tangible electrification milestones (solid-state battery updates, U.S. battery plant ramp-up) and significant CSR efforts (Special Olympics, flood relief). This orchestrated approach, reinforcing trust and quality while evolving with cultural moments, created durable loyalty and long-term value.

Case Study: Temu’s Momentum Decline (Momentum Score: 27%) Temu, despite an initial surge driven by ultra-low prices and gamified shopping, saw its momentum soften due to a compounding effect of regulatory exposure, trust deficits, and policy shocks. Escalated EU Digital Services Act (DSA) enforcement actions, product safety headlines, U.S. tariff changes, and reduced U.S. ad presence undermined its growth engine. Investor sentiment also shifted, tying weaker margins to these external pressures. This demonstrated that media spend cannot compensate for trust gaps related to IP concerns, product quality perception, and regulatory scrutiny. When safety questions arise, price alone cannot cushion the blow.

Governance, Measurement, and Future-Proofing Your Brand

Effective management of Brand Momentum requires robust governance, precise measurement, and a clear operating model. For enterprise leaders, this translates into establishing specific roles, guardrails, thresholds, and continuous data integration.

Measurement and Data Readiness: QuestBrand monitors key dimensions of brand equity, which composite the Momentum Score, refreshed daily from a nationally representative sample of U.S. consumers:

• Familiarity: Do consumers recognize your brand?
• Consideration: Are they likely to choose your brand?
• Purchase Intent: Are they about to buy?
• Perceptions: How is your brand seen (e.g., innovative, trustworthy, dependable)?
• Emotional Connection: How do consumers feel about your brand?

This continuous data flow informs real-time insights, allowing for agile strategic adjustments. For instance, if purchase intent is declining despite high familiarity, it signals a need to investigate perception or emotional connection drivers.

Operating Model and Roles:

• CMOs and Marketing Leaders: Utilize momentum data to justify brand spend, respond to sudden shifts, benchmark against the category, and grow long-term equity. Their role evolves to predicting risk, spotting opportunities, and making smarter bets in real-time.
• Brand Managers and Strategists: Leverage momentum insights to spot winning or slumping brands, diagnose underlying causes, and prove the ROI of creative or brand investments.
• CX Leaders: Integrate momentum insights to understand how customer experience impacts overall brand perception. A positive shift in momentum driven by “Customer Centric” attributes, for example, could correlate with improved Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) scores, Net Promoter Scores (NPS), and reduced complaint rates. Conversely, a decline in “Trustworthy” momentum might precede an increase in time-to-resolution for service issues.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Ensure that insights from momentum tracking are shared and acted upon across product development, sales, and even legal teams, especially in areas touching on regulatory compliance or public perception shifts.

Governance and Risk Controls:

• Policy and Consent: Implement clear policies for data collection and usage to ensure ethical practices, especially when tracking public sentiment and emotional drivers.
• Guardrails and Thresholds: Define acceptable ranges for momentum scores and key attribute shifts. Establish thresholds that trigger reviews or interventions. For example, a momentum score dropping below 10% for two consecutive weeks might trigger an immediate deep-dive analysis by a dedicated brand task force.
• SLAs and Escalation Paths: Develop Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for the delivery and analysis of real-time momentum data. Define clear escalation paths for significant positive or negative shifts, ensuring that relevant stakeholders are informed and can respond swiftly.
• Red-Teaming: Proactively test brand narratives and campaigns for potential negative sentiment or backlash, especially in a social-media-driven environment where minor missteps can quickly amplify.

What ‘Good’ Looks Like: Brands that consistently score high on both momentum and loyalty are nearly unshakable. They are not just loved; they are continuously growing. Top-performing brands achieve this by:

• Reinforcing their brand promise with consistency across all touchpoints.
• Evolving with culture without losing clarity on their core identity.
• Delivering across every key brand touchpoint, ensuring a cohesive and positive experience.

Summary

Brand Momentum, as measured by QuestBrand, represents the market share of the mind and is an indispensable metric for modern enterprise leaders. It moves beyond traditional brand equity by providing real-time, forward-looking insights into how consumers perceive your brand’s trajectory. In a dynamic landscape driven by high-velocity cultural moments and generational shifts, embracing Brand Momentum requires agility, a deep understanding of emotional drivers, and a commitment to consistent, values-driven action. By adopting a proactive playbook that prioritizes continuous measurement, cross-functional collaboration, and culturally relevant strategies, enterprises can not only predict market shifts but also intentionally shape their brand’s future, translating momentum into sustainable growth and enduring market value.

Source: QuestBrand by The Harris Poll. (2025). A Brand leader’s playbook: How to boost market value with Brand Momentum