Brand Movement: Reading Change Across the Consumer Journey

The term “growth” in this discussion does not mean sales growth. The data used here, from YouGov BrandIndex, does not measure sales.

What we want to distinguish are two things that are often treated as the same: a brand that is getting stronger in a particular area, and a brand whose relationship with consumers is getting broader.

A brand can become higher in quality, better in value, better liked, or more strongly recommended by people who already know it. That is a meaningful change.

But it does not automatically show that the brand is reaching consumers more widely, entering more people’s consideration, or moving closer to a purchase decision.

Conversely, when a brand moves across more than one layer of the consumer journey, the story is different. Change can occur from visibility, through brand evaluation, to consideration.

For this reason, reading brand movement should not stop at the question:

“How many metrics went up?”

The more important questions are:

“Which parts went up, which parts moved along with them, and which parts have not moved?”

That is where the context of a brand movement begins to show.

YouGov Biggest Brand Movers selects the 10 brands with the most statistically significant improvement compared with the previous month, based on 13 BrandIndex metrics. Only brands with Aided Brand Awareness above 50% can enter the list.

The thirteen metrics fall into three layers:

This division matters because movement in each layer answers a different question.

A rise in Awareness indicates a change in visibility. A rise in Quality and Value indicates a change in evaluation. Consideration indicates something different again.

So two brands with the same number of rising metrics are not necessarily undergoing the same kind of change.

The September 2026 data shows these differences quite clearly.

Two things stand out immediately.

First, Kobe and Dua Belibis each have five metrics that increased. But their patterns of movement differ.

Kobe spans Awareness, several brand health metrics, and Consideration. Its movement stretches from the top of the consumer journey to further along it.

Dua Belibis has five metrics, all within brand health: Impression, Value, Reputation, Recommend, and Quality.

In other words, Dua Belibis shows a strengthening in how consumers evaluate the brand, while Kobe shows change spread across several layers of the consumer relationship.

Both have “gone up.” But what is strengthening is not the same.

This is one of the key readings from the data.

When several brand health metrics move together, as with Dua Belibis, we see a strengthening in the way consumers evaluate the brand.

Value, Quality, Reputation, Recommend, and Impression all moved.

However, no media & communication or purchase funnel metrics were reported as rising in that profile.

This does not mean the brand failed to move. A lot has strengthened, but the strengthening is concentrated in one layer.

This matters for marketers because “brand health is improving” and “the brand is becoming broader” are two different stories.

A brand can grow stronger in the minds of consumers who already know it without, at the same time, showing change in consideration or purchase intent.

Therefore, improving brand health should not immediately be read as evidence that the entire consumer journey is improving as well.

Kobe presents a different pattern.

Awareness rose. Impression, Value, and Satisfaction also rose. Consideration moved as well.

Not all of the 13 metrics changed. But the changes that appeared are spread across several layers.

This makes Kobe’s pattern different from that of brands that strengthen in only one area.

What is interesting is not merely the five metrics. It is that the five metrics sit at different points in the consumer’s relationship with the brand.

From here, the number of movements becomes secondary information. The structure of the movement becomes the more important information.

One risk in reading a brand tracker is paying attention only to the filled columns. Yet the empty columns also set limits on what we can conclude.

For Royco, for example, Awareness and Ad Awareness rose, along with Value and Quality. This shows change in visibility and in brand evaluation at the same time.

But no purchase funnel metrics were reported as moving.

For that reason, the data cannot yet be used to say that the increases in visibility and evaluation have translated into increases in consideration or purchase intent.

The same can be seen with Daihatsu.

Ad Awareness, Word of Mouth Exposure, and Buzz rose, while Satisfaction also moved. This pattern shows a combination of communication and brand health.

However, no purchase funnel metrics were reported as rising in that profile.

Thus, movement gives us a signal about what has changed, and at the same time shows what the data cannot yet prove.

This is why reading a brand tracker as a monthly list of winners can cause marketers to lose context.

If the movements are read by layer, at least four patterns can be seen.

This reading makes the same data far more useful.

Not to determine which brand is the “most successful,” but to understand what kind of change is taking place.

Across the 25 YouGov top-five profiles detailed by IDNR from May to September 2026, Purchase Intent appeared only once, for Apple in June.

Consideration, meanwhile, appeared in 14 profiles and Current Customer in 17.

These figures do not mean Consideration or Current Customer is always more important than other metrics. But they show that not every form of movement appears with the same frequency in this dataset.

Therefore, when Consideration appears alongside other movements, the context becomes important.

For Kobe, Consideration appeared together with Awareness and several brand health metrics.

For Kacang Garuda, meanwhile, Current Customer moved together with Buzz, Impression, and Recommend.

Both touch areas closer to the actual relationship between consumers and the brand, but through different patterns.

This is where cross-metric reading becomes more valuable than simply counting how many indicators rose.

Visibility is not just about advertising

Other YouGov data also shows why communication movements need to be read carefully.

In the YouGov Advertisers of the Month, Daihatsu recorded a 4.5-point increase in Ad Awareness from July to August, while Royco rose 3.9 points.

SariWangi recorded a 6.8-point increase in Ad Awareness.

In the Word of Mouth Risers, Daihatsu recorded an increase of 4.4 points, Samsung 5.0 points, Aquviva 4.6 points, Wuling 4.4 points, and Instagram 3.7 points.

However, not every brand that saw an increase in Ad Awareness or Word of Mouth made it into the September Biggest Brand Movers list.

Aquviva, Wuling, and Instagram, for example, are not among the 10 Biggest Brand Movers.

This shows that an increase in one form of visibility does not automatically mean the whole brand is moving broadly.

A brand can gain more attention or conversation without significant change in the other metrics that make up the consumer’s relationship with the brand.

Conversely, a brand can appear as a mover because of a combination of changes occurring in other layers.

Value is not just about being cheap

Another pattern deserves attention: Value appears for Kobe, Dua Belibis, and Royco.

Value is often translated simply as “cheap” or “affordable.” However, today’s consumer context makes that reading too narrow.

NielsenIQ, in its April 2026 report on Asia Pacific consumers, noted that consumers increasingly define value more broadly, including quality and reliability, availability, price transparency, and relevance to their needs.

That finding is regional, not specific to Indonesia. But it provides important context for why Value should not be treated as a synonym for low price.

In the September data, Value actually appears together with Quality for Royco, with Quality and other evaluation metrics for Dua Belibis, and with Impression and Satisfaction for Kobe.

Therefore, when Value moves, marketers need to look at which metrics move with it.

Value moving alone tells a different story from Value moving together with Quality, Satisfaction, or Consideration.

Brand movement happens among consumers who have not entirely stopped spending

The economic context also makes reading these movements more interesting.

Bank Indonesia’s Consumer Survey for August 2026 shows a Consumer Confidence Index of 118.5, up from 116.8 in July. The share of income used for consumption also rose to 74.2% from 72.7%.

However, the durable goods purchase index remains in pessimistic territory for the expenditure group up to Rp3.1 million.

This means consumption signals are not moving in one simple direction. Consumers are still spending, but decisions in certain categories may remain more cautious.

In this context, brand movement should also be read as a change in how consumers see and relate to brands, not immediately translated into a change in sales.

From “our brand is up” to “what actually changed?”

Ultimately, the value of a brand tracker lies not in its ability to give marketers a reason to say a brand is rising. Its value emerges when the data helps explain the shape of that rise.

Kobe and Dua Belibis show why the number of metrics is not enough.

Royco and Daihatsu show why visibility does not automatically equal movement in the purchase funnel.

Kacang Garuda shows that Buzz can appear alongside changes in Impression, Recommend, and Current Customer, without necessarily being followed by Awareness or Consideration.

And the appearance of Value across several brands shows that a single metric can mean different things depending on which metrics move with it.

So the way we read brand movement needs to shift:

Not just: “How many went up?”

But:

“What is getting stronger?”

“Is that strengthening concentrated, or does it span several layers?”

“Is the brand getting stronger among consumers who already know it, or is it starting to show signs of a broader relationship with consumers?”

And no less important:

“What has not changed?”

Because often, it is precisely in the parts that have not moved that the limits of a brand movement become clearest.

Sources

YouGov (2026), Indonesia Biggest Brand Movers 2026, May–September 2026, updated September 17, 2026. Includes BrandIndex definitions and methodology.

YouGov (2026), Indonesia Word of Mouth Risers 2026, May–August 2026, updated September 11, 2026.

NielsenIQ (2026), NIQ Insights: Asia Pacific Consumers Redefine Value Amid Ongoing Uncertainty, April 2026, based on Beyond Oil Shocks: FMCG Strategies in an Uncertain World.

Bank Indonesia (2026), Consumer Survey August 2026 (Survei Konsumen Agustus 2026).