Brand research: venture from vague to veracious vision with iron-clad insights
The name says it all. In brand research, you examine a brand in relation to the target audience and other brands. In short, it's any type of research that gives you information on how a brand is performing. For example, brand research covers how well known your brand is and what associations people have with it. With the results, you have gold in your hands and there's work to be done.
Think before you start
Compare it to buying a first home. You do a lot of homework, because you're goint to spend a lot of money. Besides the home, you also study the current market, walk around the neighborhood and see what others think of it. It's the same in the brand world. Investing in the branding, marketing, and communication of your organization sounds like a good plan. But only if it's based on fact. Not assumptions. That's where brand research comes in.
Insights into how the target audience sees you and other brands, are like Messi for Argentina: valuable. Those insights specify the prospects and difficulties that your organisation faces. You no longer have to 'sense' how your brand is doing or doubt: 'What are all these efforts worth?' With the results of good research, the answer to that doubt is simple: more! No fingerspitzengefühl. Instead, a goal-oriented repositioning, rebranding, and new communication. That way, you take two confident steps forward. Instead of one hesitant one.
How it works
During a brand research, we ask your target groups about your brand and those of your competitors. We do this through interviews and surveys. We ask empathetic questions, for example about the needs they have and the values they consider important, just to understand the target group better. Other questions are about aided and spontaneous awareness, consideration, and preferences. All those elements say something about the brand awareness, brand preference, and brand associations of you and your competitors. Valuable information, right?
It gets even better. With the scientifically approved protocol for measuring "brand assets," we can even measure your corporate identity. A brand asset is anything that a brand can activate in the target audience's memory. Think of logos (Apple), slogans (Just Do It, Nike), packaging (Bottle, Dreft), colors (blue-yellow, IKEA), and jingles (Kama-jaja-jippie-jippiejee, Hornbach).
One by one we present the brand assets of the different brands to the target group. The respondents write down three brands for each brand asset. From that data, you get important information on which brand assets to keep, amplify, test, or discard. Thinking of a new corporate identity (rebranding)? Then this is what you need. In other words, brand research helps your organization with these three things:
- Insights as input for a new brand strategy.
- A baseline measurement so you can later on determine if the objectives of the new brand strategy, rebranding, and future communication campaigns have been met.
- Determine if the new brand strategy and branding are resonating with your different target audiences.
Something for your brand?
You now have an idea of what brand research is and how beneficial it is for an organization. You probably also realized that we, Mandelo, a digital branding agency, are passionate about it. Not coincidentally, we specialize in brand strategy and corporate identities. Brand research is part of our strategy workflow. It gives our clients the assurance of success. And that's worth a lot. Do you need support? You know how to find us.