So you're a brand marketer. You need the inside track on everything your brands are up to - products, services, and corporate. Everything from namechecks to advertorial. How do you gather it?

With i.d, any project starts by delving into these basic metrics. Like where your brand names are being mentioned .... and who's mentioning them. Listing top sources. Sizing your audiences. Stakeholder polling. Competitive benchmarking. Media auditing: measuring magnitude and intensity, differentiating real communication from merely shouting. (Including talking to an empty room.) Why? Because there's no truer measure of what people believe than media sentiment about you.

Those metrics aren't easy to gather. Getting them needs the right perspective, where to look and what to look for. But they're i.d's starting point. Because from national tabloids to trade newsfeeds, media sentiment influences (and is influenced by) your entire audience. Which lets you support your decisions with hard facts.