What caught our attention
Vi has spent the past year working to change how consumers see it — a challenger brand in the middle of a turnaround.
A brand reset is usually judged on one headline number. We wanted to see whether the consumer measures underneath it were moving together, or apart.
What BII shows
Buying Intent
Buying Intent: 67.8 to 121.3, Aug ’25 to Aug ’26.
Brand Desire
Brand Desire: 45.8 to 154.2, Aug ’25 to Aug ’26.
Brand Trust
Brand Trust: 88.5 to 63.8, Aug ’25 to Aug ’26.
What sits underneath
Buying Intent is consumers’ keenness to buy. Brand Desire is how much they want the brand; Brand Trust is how far they rely on it.
For Vi, the two supporting measures went in opposite directions over the same twelve months. Brand Desire rose from 45.8 to 154.2; Brand Trust moved down from 88.5 to 63.8. Buying Intent rose alongside Desire rather than Trust.
Why this matters
A recovery rarely shows up on every measure at once. Wanting a brand again can return quickly; relying on it may take longer, because trust tends to be rebuilt through experience.
If Desire runs well ahead of Trust for a long stretch, the gain in keenness to buy could prove fragile. That is why the distance between the two measures may matter as much as the headline.
What we would watch next
BII reads every brand every month, so each of these can be followed as it develops.
- Whether Brand Trust steadies, or keeps falling while Desire holds.
- Whether Buying Intent holds its Aug ’26 level once attention around the turnaround fades.
- Whether the distance between Brand Desire and Brand Trust narrows month by month.
How BII can be used this way
Rebrand and turnaround tracking
When a brand relaunches, repositions or works to recover, BII separates wanting the brand from relying on it — showing whether Brand Desire, Brand Trust and Buying Intent are moving together, and which one is lagging.
Read every month, it shows whether a turnaround is broadening across measures or resting on one of them.
See the six ways brands use BIIMethod and caveats
- Period
- Aug ’25 compared with Aug ’26.
- Category
- Mobile service providers.
- Scope
- BII’s monthly national reading across the 16 cities it covers.
- Reading
- Figures are BII index readings as published. They describe what moved, not why. Several things happened around Vi during this period, and BII does not attribute the movement to any one of them.
Independent BII analyses. Brands featured are selected because we find the market development noteworthy; inclusion does not imply a client relationship.