The 2026 Q1 Brand Performance Index (BPI) provides a composite operating metric for brand performance. It uses AI-fueled intelligence gathering and analysis to show which brands are leading their industries.
In 2020, Peloton's brand seemed unstoppable. Retention rates hit 95%+. NPS scores exceeded 70 (among the highest in fitness). Revenue soared 172%. Every operational metric pointed to brand success.
Then the pandemic subsided, and Peloton's brand positioning collapsed overnight. Were they a fitness company? A technology company? A luxury lifestyle brand? Wall Street couldn't tell. Customers couldn't tell. Revenue fell 90% in two years despite maintaining strong product satisfaction among existing users.
Peloton's crisis reveals a fundamental problem with how brands measure performance: The right operational data was measuring the wrong strategic question.
For decades, brand leaders have been asked to answer one deceptively complex question:
How is our brand actually performing?
The problem is not a lack of data. It’s that the wrong data has been used to answer the question.
Each tells part of the story. None tells the whole story.
That’s why we built the Brand Performance Index (BPI), a proprietary system designed to measure brand performance the way modern markets actually work. Visit the 2026 Q1 Brand Performance Index hub to review the index for 20+ industries.
Traditional brand measurement evolved in an era where marketing channels were limited and customer journeys were predictable. Today’s reality looks very different:
Yet most organizations still rely on lagging indicators.
Metrics like awareness, NPS, and pipeline contribution are useful but incomplete. They suffer from three critical limitations:
1. They look backward
Awareness and NPS tell you what already happened, not what will happen next.
2. They isolate outcomes from causes
Pipeline may grow or shrink, but traditional measurement rarely explains why.
3. They fail to connect brand to operational decisions
Dashboards report performance without guiding action.
Brand leaders are left with data but no operating system for decision-making.
Finance has composite metrics.
Operations has composite metrics.
Product teams have composite metrics.
Brand has historically had fragments.
The Brand Performance Index (BPI) introduces something brand organizations have never truly had: A composite operating metric for brand performance.
Rather than tracking isolated signals, BPI synthesizes dozens of inputs — website traffic, social media presence, customer reviews, media coverage, analyst commentary, industry publications, competitive positioning data, and customer loyalty indicators into a unified system that comprises:
Think of it as a credit score for your brand, continuously updated, multi-dimensional, and tied to business outcomes.
The BPI evaluates brands across dozens of industries using seven core dimensions, producing both:
These scores allow organizations to benchmark themselves against competitors and understand where brand performance is accelerating or at risk.
The BPI evaluates brand strength across seven interconnected dimensions. Together, they provide a complete picture of how a brand exists, competes, and grows in the market.
Are you known by the right audiences?
Market Awareness measures how visible your brand is within its category and target market.
Signals include:
Business outcome:
Higher awareness expands consideration sets and increases the probability of inclusion early in buying journeys.
What do people believe about your brand?
Perception evaluates how audiences interpret and emotionally respond to your brand.
Signals include:
Business outcome:
Positive perception improves conversion efficiency, strengthens credibility, and supports premium positioning.
Do you clearly stand for something different?
Positioning Strength measures how effectively your brand communicates a distinct and defensible market position.
Signals include:
Business outcome:
Strong positioning reduces competitive friction and increases win rates by simplifying buyer decisions.
Does your brand show up the same way everywhere?
Consistency evaluates how reliably your brand is expressed across channels, teams, and customer touchpoints.
Signals include:
Business outcome:
Consistent brands build memory structures faster, accelerate recognition, and prevent brand dilution caused by fragmented execution.
Do customers stay, advocate, and return?
Loyalty measures the strength of ongoing relationships between your brand and its customers.
Signals include:
Business outcome:
High loyalty reduces acquisition costs, increases lifetime value, and creates durable growth independent of paid demand generation.
What ideas, values, and capabilities are linked to your brand?
Association evaluates the mental shortcuts audiences use when they think about your company.
Signals include:
Business outcome:
Strong associations ensure your brand is remembered for the *right reasons* — shaping consideration before buyers ever engage sales.
Does your brand shape the market — or react to it?
Market Influence measures a brand’s ability to lead conversations, define narratives, and move category direction.
Signals include:
Business outcome:
Influential brands command attention, set pricing expectations, attract partners, and disproportionately capture growth opportunities.
Together, these seven dimensions transform brand measurement from isolated metrics into a holistic system for understanding brand power in motion, revealing not only where a brand stands today, but how it is likely to perform tomorrow.
Each dimension feeds into a single Brand Impact Score, a composite measurement reflecting overall brand performance. This score answers the question executives actually care about:
Instead of debating disconnected metrics, leadership teams gain a shared operating view.
Curious about our methodology? Sign up for a free account for access to our complete Data Collection & Analysis Methodology.
The companies winning today invest in brand and operate it with discipline. They recognize that:
Modern brand leadership requires a composite, forward-looking operating metric. That’s the role of the Brand Performance Index.
Visit the 2026 Q1 Brand Performance Index hub to review the index for 20+ industries. Didn't make the list? Create a free Brandmaven account to check your score and benchmark against peers.
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