New Zealand-based brand tracking startup Tracksuit wants to take on traditional market research players by offering a more affordable and accessible brand insight tool.
“Market research and brand tracking has been around for a long time. Usually with 100-page slide decks and a lot of complex data, consultants come in quarterly or semi-annually and look back, not ahead. It consists of seeing,” says Matt. Tracksuit co-founder and co-CEO Herbert told TechCrunch that most market research services are reserved for enterprise-level companies, and small businesses have less access to such insights. I’m here.
“At Tracksuit, we wanted to create an affordable, always-on, easy-to-use way to access these insights.”
Tracksuit, launching in 2021, features an intuitive dashboard that tracks metrics like brand awareness, considerations, preferences and usage, and measures how a company compares to its competitors. It’s a software-as-a-service product for a flat fee, Herbert said, which he says is 10 times cheaper than the current standard.
Tracksuit’s tools currently track insights for over 1,300 brands in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and most recently the US. The company recently raised his $5 million in its first external round and plans to use the funding to further expand into the U.S. market. Tracksuit made his first hire in New York City in November, and he’s building a 10-person team to support the expansion.
Led by Blackbird, the round also included participation from Shasta Ventures, Icehouse Ventures, Ascential, and brand consultant Mark Ritson.
Blackbird partner Phoebe Harrop said in a statement: “The magic of the tracksuit gives companies in every industry a common language to measure, speak and invest in brand health.”
“A common language.” Herbert said what TechCrunch Tracksuit seeks to achieve is a standard for measuring, understanding and communicating brand values.
The startup targets medium-sized and growing consumer brands across food and beverage, FMCG (fast moving consumer goods), retail, direct to consumer and financial services. Herbert said half of the company’s customers come from existing brands in his tracking market, while the other half are new segments that the market research industry has never served before. Major customers today include Made by Nacho, Charity: Water and Athletic Brewing Company.
Herbert said strong demand for the company’s products suggests a shift in how consumer companies approach marketing. They are “more focused on building long-term growth through highly effective and creative marketing than immediate conversions,” he said.
Tracksuit surveys target customers around the world to gather insights. Use these surveys to set your brand fundamentals. What is the total market served? How well-known is the brand, how much is it considered, where are they most liked? What do people really think and feel about the brand? How will it change over time?
From there, the tracksuit goes even deeper.
“Each brand has strategic pillars or value propositions that they want to own. Demonstrating the Tracksuit’s “no-prompt images” feature, Herbert said he could create a word cloud that shows what words come to mind for a particular brand. It’s shown next to a similar word cloud for the brand’s biggest competitor.
All of these insights help brands ask the big questions what is the job to do? It’s hard to market your brand to people who don’t know it, so tracksuit insights may help you learn that your brand needs to build awareness first and foremost.
“What are the growth opportunities and where should we focus our advertising, communications and marketing strategies?” said Herbert.
