The Sense and Nonsense of Brand Research – How to Conduct Good Brand Research

From greater brand awareness to brand building and from enhancing a brand image to establishing a new brand; for most marketing department targets, the brand is central. This is not surprising. The brand is often a major factor in the decision-making process. Even if the shopper is not aware of it.

This brings us to an immediate problem. If shoppers are unaware of a brand's role in their decision-making, how can we as marketers uncover it? In this blog, we will discuss the sense and nonsense of brand research.

 

What Strong Brands Have in Common

Brands like Apple and Coca-Cola clearly show it; a brand is one of a company's most valueable assets. And although when building a strong brand, you might quickly think it’s about a strong proposition and that people will love your brand - we've all heard about the love brand - it turns out that in our brains, it works a bit differently.

Our brain is associative by nature. Brands are nothing more than networks of associations. Brand building is the creation and strengthening of associations with the brand in the consumer's brain. 

These can be associations with the category - in this way brand awareness is created - or with various other, more emotional associations - on which your brand image is based. 

Since our brain is naturally lazy and wants to make choices as easily as possible, brands serve as shortcuts that simplify our choices. 

Strong brands like Apple and Coca-Cola have numerous advantages. They are more often bought intentionally, stand out more quickly, shoppers compare fewer alternatives, less price sensitivity is shown, and the product experience is perceived as more positive. 

But how do you build such a brand? A strong brand is built on two key pillars: awareness and image.

Brand Awareness

Awareness is thus one of the basic ingredients of brand building. That makes sense: The more people know your brand, the more likely they are to buy from you. 

As a brand, you want to become a leader within the category and be recognisable. The main way to increase brand awareness is by linking brand assets to your brand. 

In this way, you literally expand the territory of your brand in the shopper's brain, causing them to think of your brand more often in purchasing situations, your brand will stand out more, and ultimately be sold more. Brand assets are thus the engine behind brand growth. 

From Nike's recognisable logo to McDonald's "I'm lovin' it" slogan and from Hornbach's jingle "Kama-jaja-yippie-yippie-jee" to Jumbo's Frank Lammers - all these distinctive brand assets help the brand secure a prominent place in the consumer's brain. 

A good way to gain insight into the awareness and recognisability of your brand is therefore brand asset research. Here, you measure on the one hand the awareness of your brand assets, and on the other hand the uniqueness. What you do not want is for your brand asset to remind the shopper not only of you but also of the competitor. In this way, all your marketing efforts also contribute to the competitor's success.

Brand Image

The second driver for brand growth is brand image. And although associations with the category (read: to what extent Coca-Cola is associated with the category Soft Drinks) mainly increase a brand's awareness, there are numerous other associations that increase a brand's success. 

If I were to ask you how much you would pay for sparkling water. What would you say?

Take the product below. "Just" sparkling water. Yet a twelve-pack of this product goes for 14 dollars. That is significantly more than average for sparkling water. And the product is doing well too, as seen from the 26,000 reviews on Amazon. 

This is precisely the power of branding. This is what a strong brand image does. That people are willing to pay not 1 dollar but 12 dollars, and that they reward it with 26,000 reviews as well. 

A strong brand image not only ensures that people buy your product faster but also results in shoppers being much less price-sensitive. In other words: it allows you to ask for a price premium. 

It is therefore certainly useful to measure and strengthen your brand image. However, the way in which you do so determines whether it falls into the "Sense" or "Nonsense" list. 

Sometimes brand image is measured explicitly by consciously asking about it. But that yields little distinguished data. The image below illustrates this nicely: the two banks differ almost nothing from each other when it comes to the conscious brand image. 

Source: Decoded, Phill Barden

When we then look at the implicit image, we do see differences. This form of research reveals the unconscious nuances between brands. 

The implicit image can be measured through reaction time tasks such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Because we know: the faster one can process a combination of two words or associations (such as a brand and an association), the stronger this association is anchored in the brand. It is therefore often more useful to measure the unconscious brand image than the conscious brand image. At Unravel, we regularly conduct Brand Image Research for national and international brands. 

The chance is great that when we had asked people why they bought Liquid Death in the example above, they would start thinking very consciously and rationalise their choice, coming up with answers like: the good quality. While the chance is great that unconsciously other motives play a role. With implicit testing, you get a complete picture of the associations people have with your brand. 

And What About Brand Loyalty?  

Increasing brand loyalty. A goal that regularly comes up at meeting tables. As a brand, we naturally like to see our customers return loyally. But as we wrote in an earlier blog, the traditional thought is of a customer who becomes more and more attached to the brand, until he or she eventually puts no other brand in the shopping basket. 

But when we look at sales data, it often turns out to be an illusion. Take Coca-Cola, for example. One of the most beloved brands in the world. Although the market as a whole shows a tendency towards Coca-Cola, it turns out not to be divided into two camps. No, 41% of Coca-Cola buyers also buy Pepsi, and 72% of Pepsi buyers also buy Coca-Cola. 

If about the most beloved brand cannot achieve that, the chance is small that other brands can achieve it. 

Loyalty is therefore not the result of a passionate connection between the brand and the consumer, but rather ingrained habits that make our lives easier.

Exclusive loyalty is therefore often not a wise goal, because it is rare and thus not a major driver of growth. Loyalty is not the cause of brand growth, but rather the result. For that reason, it is often wiser to measure other brand constructs such as awareness and image.

Key Takeaways

• Strong brands have in common that they are both well-known and possess a positive brand image
• Despite the past talk of the love brand, our brain works differently. Our brain is associative by nature, and brands are nothing more than networks of associations in our brain. Brand building is the creation and strengthening of associations.
• Want to gain insight into the awareness and recognisability of your brand? Then a solid brand asset research is important. Here, you measure on the one hand the awareness of your brand assets, and on the other hand the uniqueness. 
• Measuring brand image by explicitly asking yields a distorted picture. This is because brand image is largely unconscious. Want to really know how your brand is experienced in the consumer's brain? Then you can use implicit research, which measures the strength between two associations through reaction time. 
• Loyalty is not the cause of brand growth, but rather the result. It is therefore often wiser to measure other brand constructs such as awareness and image to map the health of your brand.