Twenty Research-Based Findings Regarding Brands

I have drawn these findings from a variety of research studies. Most are outlined in my Brand Aid book.

1. The five drivers of customer brand insistence are awareness, relevant differentiation, value, accessibility and emotional connection.
2. Brand familiarity and knowledge are the most important components of brand equity, leading to liking, acquisition, retention and profitability. 
3. A brand's relevant differentiation is highly correlated with its ability to command a price premium and its increased profitability. 
4. A brand’s perceived quality increases with increases in advertising impressions, regardless of message. 
5. Media environment affects advertising claims. For instance, quality claims are more effective on elite or prestigious websites because people associate the claim with the media environment. 
6. Consumers are more apt to relax and accept advertiser recommendations when the tone is that of a friend or an unbiased authority.
7. Aspirational, upscale, and high status brands have the potential to alienate customers who lack confidence. While these customers might admire these brands, they don’t feel comfortable using them. Building warmth, humor, and less formality into the brands to make them more approachable helps overcome this problem.
8. When a brand applies a positive label to its potential customers, they are more likely to purchase that brand.
9. Lifestyle branding associates a brand with a particular lifestyle or type of individual, primarily delivering self-expressive benefits to the customer. A not often considered downside of this approach is the increased competition that it invites from brands in other product or service categories that have decided to associate with the same lifestyle. 
10. In most product categories, price is the primary purchase incentive for no more than 15 percent to 35 percent of all customers.
11. Customers share bad brand experiences with approximately twice as many people as they do good brand experiences.
12. Declining brands tend to lose buyers while the brands’ loyalty and purchase rates stay stable among remaining buyers.
13. Extending one or more products of an average quality brand into a higher quality segment increases the brand's overall quality perception.
14. In some sectors, an increase in the consumer base by just one percent is otherwise equivalent to a 10 percent cost reduction.
15. Suggestive brand names assist with recall of brand benefits that are suggested by the names, but inhibit recall of other subsequently advertised brand benefits.
16. Country of origin, when known, affects brand perceptions, especially within luxury categories.
17. Customer experience is the result of these factors: social environment, service interface, retail atmosphere, assortment, price, customer experiences in alternative channels and the retail brand.
18. “Purchase intent” tends to be inflated for declining brands and understated for emerging brands.
19. Advertising is often most effective in increasing share of market when brands are so similar that the advertising message is the primary source of differentiation.
20. Immediate post-purchase brand reinforcement increases a customer's attitudinal loyalty.