Purpose and Benefits

A brand is the proprietary visual, emotional, rational, and cultural image that you associate with an organization or a product.   The brand identity includes the brand name, positioning statement, category descriptor, organizational values, brand archetype, design elements (colors, logo, overall look and feel) and the brand’s key associations (tangible and intangible purchase decision drivers).

Brand associations are the attributes that customers think of when they hear or see the brand name.  Ideally, you want customers to think of what they want from the brand (i.e., the benefits, tangible or emotional, or both) and then associate those attributes most strongly with your brand name, rather than your competitors’.

Most organizations don’t know what the most important purchase drivers are for their product or service category.  In the branding research we conduct, we determine both the tangible (visible, explicit) and intangible (sub-conscious, emotional) purchase drivers for their product or service category.  Our branding research also determines the strength of the different brand associations (e.g., reliability, ease of use, great customer service) of the competitor brands in order to assess product/service positioning and then develop brand strategies with that knowledge.  We also look at what the key switching factors are for the product/service category; that is, what would cause a customer to switch to another brand?  Also, importantly, we determine brand awareness and the top-of-mind brand associations of the main competitive brands.

Branding research also includes testing brand components such as positioning statements, category descriptors, organizational values, and design elements & hot button words/phrases that will best evoke the types of emotions that are in line with what the brand is about.

Key Questions Answered

  • What the top purchase drivers are for our product/service category?
  • What are the relative strengths of associations among the competitors of the top purchase factors?
  • What is the best category descriptor and the best positioning statement for our brand?
  • What design elements (visual and written) best evoke the brand associations we want for our brand?

Research Techniques

  • In-person focus groups/triads & dyads
  • Metaphor groups
  • Brand Laddering
  • Web surveys
  • Executive interviews