Brand Research & Brand Positioning e-learning Courses

 

During February and March of 2025, I am offering "Brand Research" and "Positioning Your Brand to Win" e-learning courses for $35 instead of the normal $150, for a $115 price discount. This very low price will only be available for these two months. These courses are intended for beginning through intermediate study of the topics. They include videos, links to online blog posts and articles, numerous examples, tools, templates, exercises and a quiz. You will emerge from these two courses with a much better understanding of these topics.

• Brand Research
• Positioning Your Brand to Win

Online Branding Education

I have created two new online brand management courses: (1) Positioning Your Brand to Win! and (2) Brand Research. If you have a couple hours to spare and want to dive deeply into these two topics, click on the links to begin your education.

Research Must Precede Strategy

Marketing research must precede brand strategy -- period. The best strategies are based on extensive research. Qualitative research can provide insights regarding beliefs, values, attitudes, hopes, fears, anxieties, dreams and other core motivations. It can also help you understand how the category is perceived and how each of the brands in the category are perceived. Customer segmentation studies can help you dimensionalise your market and discover the most lucrative customer segments for your brand. Brand positioning research can help you understand what your brand stands for and whether and to whom that matters. It can also help you discover competitors' vulnerabilities and brand positioning gaps and opportunities. There is also brand equity research, brand asset mapping, brand extension studies, logo research, advertising effectiveness studies, and more. 

I have successfully crafted strategy for more than 200 well-known brands. From that experience, I can tell you that there is a direct correlation between the quality of a brand's strategy and the amount and quality of research that preceded it. It's that simple. Sometimes clients want me to help them craft the strategy without the research. That is a mistake. So, consider this to be an admonition from a veteran of the process. 

For a complete course on brand research, follow this LINK. 

Brand Research

 

Introducing our online brand research course. This comprehensive introductory course focuses on how to use marketing research to build, manage and grow successful brands and it highlights the most important marketing research issues and considerations. Further, you will learn about more than 40 different qualitative and quantitative research methodologies and techniques and when it is appropriate to use each. Topics include brand positioning research, brand equity research, brand extension research and customer segmentation research.

To learn more or to take the course, click here. 

Brand Research Topics

These are some of the areas of customer, brand and marketing research that I think could better inform brand management and marketing activities and decisions:

• Understand how well this generic four part segmentation scheme applies to a wide variety of product and service categories: (a) price conscious customers, (b) convenience oriented customers, (c) brand loyal customers, and (d) category enthusiasts who love to try new products and brands. Determine to what types of products and services this segmentation scheme mostly applies. 
• Identify the top few visual triggers for each of the top 100 brands. Include auditory, tactile, olfactory and gustatory triggers as applicable. 
• Determine the primary and secondary personas for people who prefer each automotive brand, make and model. 
• Understand what categories and brands are most effective in signaling social status within each social class. Categories to explore might include college/university affiliation, private club affiliation, religious affiliation, political party affiliation, city or town of residence, housing preferences, vacation preferences, hotel preferences, automobile preferences, hobbies, sports, musical preferences, food preferences, etc. Explore which brands across all categories are the most accurate and powerful indicators of social status. 
• Related to the previous bullet, identify the top 100 brands that serve as self-expressive badges. 
• Segment the US population by anxieties and fears. 
• Develop complete psychological profiles of each Democratic and Republican segment including attitudes, beliefs, values, hopes, anxieties and fears. Better yet, explore these segments independent of political party to identify organic groupings of voters.
• Identify price sensitivities across product and service categories for different customer segments.
• Determine the degree to which trustworthiness, consistency, reliability and dependability contribute to brand loyalty. 
• Determine the degree to which emotional versus rational appeals influence purchase decisions in different product and service categories. 
• Develop a brand loyalty scheme that considers whether and under what conditions (including scarcity and extreme price variance) people will substitute or switch to another brand versus waiting until they can purchase their fist choice brand.
• For different categories, determine what going upmarket or downmarket does to brand perceptions and loyalty for current customers. 
• Understand the categories in which aspirational brands can have the biggest impact.
• Understand what elements must be present for people to believe a brand's claim of social consciousness. 
• Understand the impact of brand message repetition on believability, quality perceptions, preference and sales. 
• Understand the effectiveness of reach versus frequency in generating incremental sales by product or service category. The incremental sales could come from current customers, new customers or both. 
• Explore the effectiveness of different types of humor used in different ways in brand advertising. 
• Identify the top 10 value-aligned brands in the world. Explore what values they embody and to what groups of people those values most appeal. 

Types of Research for Brands

I have spent the past 35 years conducting research on behalf of brands. Over that period of time, I have conducted hundreds of studies. In this blog post, I thought I would outline the types of research that you can conduct and the things you can learn from that research. One of a researcher's most important roles is to select the right research methodology given the business and marketing objectives and the action standards.

• Though qualitative research - focus groups, mini-groups, depth interviews, online groups, etc. - you can better understand customer attitudes, beliefs, values, hopes, fears, concerns, needs, desires and perceptions of the category and your brand and competitive brands. 
• Qualitative research may be conducted using asynchronous online bulletin boards.
• Through conjoint analysis you can create the optimal combination of product/service attributes/features that deliver the greatest perceived value.
• Price sensitivity research (projective) and price elasticity research (based on historical sales) can help you develop the optimal pricing strategy.
• Brand equity studies will help you measure brand awareness, preference, associations, personality, relevance, differentiation, accessibility, perceived value, emotional connection and loyalty.
• Brand positioning studies can help you identify the most powerful unique value proposition.
• Brand asset mapping can help you understand what a brand's associations and most important assets are. 
• Brand extension research can help you understand into what new categories a brand could be most successfully extended.
• Brand emotional heat mapping research indicates the degree to which a large variety of emotions are associated with your brand.
• Attitude and usage studies will help you size and dimensionalize the market for your products.
• Customer segmentation studies can help you segment the market on a wide variety of demographic, geographic, psychographic, cohort, attitudinal, values, purchase behavior and usage behavior dimensions.
• Consumer purchase and use diaries can be used to monitor thoughts, behaviors and purchases over time to discern patterns. Diaries on smartphones are an emerging version of this research.
• In-store traffic pattern mapping including in-store heat mapping can help the the design of store layout and retail merchandising. It can also indicate with which categories, products and brands consumers spend the most time.
• Customer journey mapping is a process that helps you understand the entire customer decision making and purchasing process. 
• Anthropological research takes many forms but basically approaches customer research using anthropological methodologies. 
• This can include selfie photos and videos taken by the consumer herself. 
• Retail shop-along interviews are another form of anthropological research.
• Environmental scanning and text mining scrape and analyze text from websites, collateral, ads, white papers and articles to identify patterns and content trends.
• Customer service testing helps you understand all of the dimensions of your customer service delivery and how it was perceived by the customer.
• Mystery shoppers help you experience the customer shopping experience first hand.
• Logo research can help you develop the most powerful logo with the greatest recognition and recall. 
• Concept testing can help you understand how unique and compelling a concept is, whether it be a business, product, service or brand concept. 
• Advertising can be tested in a variety of ways. You can conduct a pre and post test to measure differences in brand awareness and associations. You can compare the results of two different creative approaches in an A/B test. 
• In online marketing, you can measure click through rates, cost per click and cost per thousand. 
• With CRM systems, you can measure the ROI of different lead generation sources and different sales approaches. 
• Perception Analyzer research allows you to view the results of quasi-quantitative research in real time while also being able to stop and ask qualitative questions of the respondents. 
• Eye tracking research can help you design better ads.
• Using CT scanning and other medical technologies to measure human response to ads can make likes and dislikes very clear. 
• Combining data mines with attitudinal research is very powerful. 
• Social polling, one or two questions at a time, is a quick, easy and affordable way to get consumer feedback.

For more information on brand-related research, refer to the Brand Research chapter in Brand Aid, second edition, available here.

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. 

Peeling Back the Onion

Sometimes, in brand research, one must continue to "peel back the onion" to better understand what the consumer is really saying. Recently, a client of mine (a heath care system) discovered that it was delivering well against convenience and accessibility. They discovered this through a quantitative brand equity measurement survey. Multiple data points pointed to this strength, including a variety of scaled response questions and some open-ended response questions. 

What they didn't discover, however, is what this actually means. For that, they will need to "peel back the onion" through further research. For instance, in their industry, accessibility could mean any of the following:

• Convenient locations
• Convenient hours
• Convenient parking, including uncrowded parking, valet parking or free parking
• 24/7 accessibility in a non-hospital setting
• A wide variety of payment options, including installment payments
• A wide variety of insurances accepted including Medicare and Medicaid
• Accepting patients who cannot pay
• Short wait times
• Immediate access to doctors
• Easy access to patient records
• 24/7 waiting or lobby areas
• Quality on-site food
• Easy admissions process
• Clear wayfinding
• Easy website navigation
• Handicap accessibility such as parking spaces, ramps and elevators
• Accommodations for deaf and blind people

If this client wants to tout (and even enhance) its accessibility, it needs to know how it is perceived to be accessible. A marketer is very lazy if he or she stops at the concept of accessibility without exploring what that actually means. How else can he or she talk about it properly on behalf of the brand and how else would he or she know to whom this might have the greatest appeal?

When conducting brand research dig deep enough to fully understand what the customer is telling you. This may require "peeling back the onion" in a number of steps.

Determining the Current Brand Position

One of the first steps in a brand repositioning project is to determine the current brand position. While this is often done through a brand audit in which the brand's website and its collateral materials are studied along with those of its competitors, this only identifies what the brand in question and its competitors are saying about themselves, that is, it will only help you identify the intended brand position, not the actual brand position. Why? Because a brand is owned in the minds of its consumers (and anyone else who is aware of the brand). It's position only really exists in their minds. 

So, to uncover the real brand position, one must find out what consumers are thinking. This can come from qualitative research such as focus groups or depth interviews or quantitative research or both. I have talked about our proprietary BrandInsistence(sm) brand equity measurement system. It measures over 70 different components of a brand's equity. It uncovers the brand position though open-ended response questions and brand delivery rating questions. This results in brand positioning maps for the brand in question and it competitors. 

Some of this can also be discovered through third party product/service rating websites and social media discussions involving the brand. Examples of third party sites are epinion.com, Amazon.com, and AngiesList.com.

The important point is to understand what consumers are thinking and not just what the brand is saying about itself. I have seen brands that have claimed to be the quality, innovation, customer-service or style leaders only to be discovered to be inferior in those areas after hearing from consumers. So, as you can imagine, brand positioning maps and work driven from marketing communication can be quite different from that driven from customer research. Make sure you always conduct customer research before repositioning a brand. Otherwise, you might end up with a highly flawed brand position. 

This problem can occur with marketing agencies that are weak in marketing research capabilities or that want to reserve the vast majority of a client's budget for the creative work. It can also occur when a client is not willing or able to provide adequate budget for the research. All of the subsequent creative work may be for naught if the positions of the brand in question and its competitors were not really understood because customer research was never conducted. 

Choosing the Right Competitive Frame of Reference

It is more important to choose an appropriate competitive frame of reference for your brand than you might think. The competitive frame of reference has significant implications for competitive strategy, brand strategy and brand positioning. And it has significant implications for brand research, including brand equity research.

As I am in the midst of conducting a brand equity study for a health care brand, I am reminded again how important it is to frame the category properly and to choose a category label that the brand's customers understand. For instance, people get confused about "health care" brands, "medical provider" brands, "health care system" brands, "health care network" brands and "medical center" brands. When asked about one or more of these brands in open-ended brand awareness questions, people list medical insurance companies, medical insurance exchanges, individual doctors, local medical practices, hospitals, outpatient clinics, dentists and other categories of brands. For instance, people might answer with all of these options for the same competitive frame of reference question: Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Obamacare, Medicaid, Medicare, Dr. Schwartz, Memorial Hospital, Johns Hopkins, Mayo Clinic, Springfield Medical Practice, Feldman Chiropractic, Rochester Medical Center and Gemini Medical Office Park. However, this list of brands is akin to comparing apples to oranges to bananas to cherries. 

To arrive at the right competitive frame of reference wording, you need to consider each of the following:

• The set of competitors you are most interested in for your brand
• The set of competitors against which you are positioning your brand
• The most appropriate label for this set of competitors
• Whether your customers will understand this label or whether you need to modify it for them to better understand it

I wish you great success in choosing the most appropriate competitive frame of reference for your brand.

To read more about this topic, my previous posts on the topic are here and here.

Focus Group Moderation

Having conducted more than one thousand focus groups during my career and have moderated over forty groups myself, I can attest to the fact that focus group moderation is not as easy as it looks to the casual observer and focus group moderators can range from brilliant to less than adequate. Poor focus group moderation is one of the reasons marketers shy away from focus groups and question their value. This begs the question, "What leads to deeply insightful and highly useful focus groups?"

Here is my list of components that lead to successful focus groups:

• Choosing the right participants. Being very deliberate and specific about who you want to engage in the process.
• Doubling up on groups so that you are not hearing from just one group for each demographic.
• Spreading the groups out geographically if your brand or product has a broad (national or international) geographic customer base.
• Carefully crafting the discussion guide well ahead of the groups themselves. 
• Developing the proper stimulus to use in the groups. Sometimes the stimulus can be elaborate.
• Capturing and anchoring some of the responses on paper prior to soliciting group discussion so that all responses are captured and contrary responses are not lost but encouraged to be articulated.
• Hiring the right moderator with the right skill sets.
• Detailed back room note taking.
• Skillful management of the back room discussion.

What should one look for in a moderator?

• The ability to put the participants at ease and relate to them one-on-one as a peer.
• Someone who has outstanding group facilitation skills. 
• The ability to draw all participants out and to politely shut down participants who try to dominate the conversation.
• Someone who can draw on a large portfolio of projective research techniques. I list twelve of these techniques in the latest edition of my Brand Aid book.
• Someone who is skilled in conducting guided imagery. This is particularly important for drawing new ideas and potential product/service enhancements out of participants, something they are rarely able to envision or articulate otherwise.
• Someone who is agile and is able change course effortlessly upon the need to do so. 
• Someone who recognizes and exploits topics and discussions that that would benefit from deeper probing.
• Someone who can alter the discussion content and flow based on previous learnings (with the client's permission) as the series of focus groups proceed so as to gain maximum learning from the the groups.
• The ability to write an insightful report of findings including implications and recommendations.
• The ability to edit focus group video tapes to succinctly and powerfully reinforce key insights from the groups.
• A broad knowledge of marketing and marketing research so that the groups will be facilitated within the broader project context.
• Someone who can maintain a high energy level within the room.
• Sometimes a knowledge of the industry for which the focus groups will be moderated is an advantage.
• More importantly, extensive cross-industry moderation experience can be an advantage.

Focus groups are typically a large time and money investment. Make sure you get the most out of the groups that you conduct.

Brand Research

On occasion, I run into people who are confused about the different types of research that can be conducted on behalf of brands. Frequently, people confuse brand tracking studies with brand equity research and sometimes they confuse brand valuation methodologies with brand equity research. Here is a brief description of each type of research:

• Brand tracking studies: These are repeatable studies that are conducted annually or even more frequently. Some companies run them on a continuous basis. Their purpose is to measure the brand's health against key metrics over time to see if the brand is improving, remaining stable or in decline. Typical measures include awareness, preference or favorability, market share, share of requirements and the brand's net promoter score (an attitudinal loyalty measure). Sometimes the studies include other measures such as brand personalty attributes. These studies tend to be high level and not very diagnostic. 
• Brand equity research: This research is designed to measure all aspects of a brand's equity. Our BrandInsistence(SM) brand equity measurement system measures more than ninety different components of a brand's equity. Its primary focus is on the five drivers of customer brand insistence - awareness, relevant differentiation, value, accessibility and emotional connection. These systems indicate overall brand health, but also should be diagnostic in that they should be able to pinpoint the components that are helping the brand and those that are working against the brand. This allows the brand manager to take the appropriate corrective action. Our brand equity measurement system also maps the brand's positioning against that of its competitors to identify brand positioning opportunities and vulnerabilities. Brand equity research can be repeated every year or every other year to measure progress against key goals and actions.
• Brand positioning research: This research indicates how the brand is perceived in the customer's mind. It consists of scaled questions that can be mapped (benefit importance versus brand delivery) and open-ended questions (What makes this brand different from or superior to other brands in this category?) While this is often conducted as a separate study, we include this research in our BrandInsistence(SM) brand equity research. 
• Brand valuation methodologies: Some brand managers feel the need to measure the value of their brands as assets. A handful of firms conduct this type of valuation. It is mostly conducted as a "black box" exercise. The outcome is a number - the value of the brand as a financial asset. These numbers can be quite large, especially for top brands whose values can be in the tens of billions of dollars.
• Brand asset mapping: In this research, brand associations are identified along with the relative strength of their link to the brand. Product, usage, personality and a variety of other associations are explored. This is primarily used to identify brand extension opportunities. 
• Brand emotional response mapping: Brands tend to evoke specific emotions. In this research,  a brand is tested against hundreds of different emotions and feelings to provide a map of the brand's emotional signature. 
• Brand positioning statement research: In this research, we explore customer feedback regarding the brand positioning statement created by the marketer. Usually, several brand positioning statements are explored simultaneously. Each statement is tested against appeal/purchase intent, uniqueness and believability. We also ask for feedback on what people like and don't like about the brand positioning statement. This research is used to choose, refine and validate brand positioning statements. 
• Brand identity research: There are several different types of brand identity research. Each one tests one or more of the following: congruence with brand positioning and promise, key brand associations, reinforcement of specific personality attributes and other qualities, preference/ranking, recognition, recall and emotional response. 
• Brand name research: This research tests different brand names against the following criteria: preference/favorability, ranking (among other options), associations (especially to identify unintended associations), clarity and congruence with the brand's promise.
• Brand tagline research: This research tests different brand taglines against the following criteria: preference/favorability, associations (especially to identify unintended associations), clarity, congruence with the brand's promise and likes and dislikes. 

I will stop here. I haven't begun to explain brand advertising research, which I will reserve for another blog post. 

For more information on brand research, read Brand Aid, second edition available here. 

PS - For you non-biology majors, the image is of a dissection kit. These research approaches are used to dissect and study brands.

Logo Research

When exploring new logo executions, the research may include any or all of the following components:

• Logo Imagery. Imagery evoked by various logo alternatives vs. that evoked by the current logo. (This exercise usually includes the intended brand personality attributes and attributes such as “boring.”)
• Logo Recognition. A “mock-up” of each variation of the logo is placed in its most likely usage environment (e.g., store marquis, product packaging) and then people at various distances are asked about what they see. This technique measures visibility, recognition, and the ability to break through visual clutter at various distances.
• Logo Recall. One at a time, different logo alternatives and the current logo are mixed in with other companies’ logos on a panel. People are allowed to view the panel for a few seconds. After that, the panel is covered or taken away and they must write down all of the brands that they remember seeing. Results are compared for each variation of the logo.
• Logo Preference. Each variation of the logo is featured on a card. People are given the deck of cards and asked to sort the logos/cards in order of preference. They are then asked to comment on why they ranked each logo variation the way they did.

At BrandForward, we conduct similar research for brand positionings, names, tag lines and messaging. 

© 2015 Brad VanAuken Excerpted from Brand Aid, second edition, available here and here.

Testing Outside of Boundaries

We conduct a lot of brand research on behalf of our clients - a mix of qualitative and quantitative. We usually try to "push the envelope" in what we explore to make sure we have not missed a brand positioning opportunity, a brand extension opportunity or any other opportunity.

Often, clients are not comfortable with this approach. We get responses such as, "We would never do that." or "Why would you test that? That is not 'on brand.'" Others ask why we are testing negative personality attributes. Some say, "Don't test that. That position is already taken by one of our competitors." Sometimes we hear, "I don't know why that is relevant." or "Why don't you focus on something more tangible." Some brand managers are much more comfortable testing functions and features than emotional, experiential and self-expressive states.

Frankly, a lot of brand managers are solidly "in the box." They will never create a breakthrough brand position or a new product concept if they are not willing to test outside of what they already know the brand's (or product's) boundaries to be. One needs to test outside of boundaries to understand if those are the true boundaries or if the boundaries can be stretched. As it has been said, "To push the boundaries, you need to know where the edges are." And to create "category of one" brands, it is mandatory that one tests outside of the current category definition.

While I agree that one should not waste time or money testing things that are irrelevant and tangential to the brand's success, sometimes it is just those things that seem tangential that result in the true breakthroughs. So, before you reign your brand consultant or brand researcher in, consider that he or she may just be on to something by testing outside of your comfort zone. 

Brand Inundation/Depravation Testing

Do you want to better understand the benefits that your brand’s product or service delivers? Do you want to discover ways to increase use of your brand’s products and services? Try this: Identify a group of very light users and ask them to use your product or service as frequently as your heaviest users do for an extended period of time (at least through several usage cycles). Identify a group of heavy users and ask them to refrain from using your product or service for the same period of time. Ask the latter group to articulate what they used in lieu of your product or service to accomplish the same result. Ask both groups to keep a journal of their thoughts and feelings as they use or refrain from using your product or service. Follow up with in-depth, one-on-one interviews to better understand the role your brand’s products and services play in their lives. I guarantee you that this exercise will provide profound insight into the full potential for your brand’s products and services.

Excerpted from Brand Aid, second edition, available here.

Conjoint Analysis

Traditionally used for pricing research, conjoint analysis is very applicable for brand research as well. Respondents rate their buying intent for products comprised of various combinations of attributes (including product, service, sales terms, price, and brand attributes). Brand name is one of the attributes. Not only is this an excellent approach to measure the overall equity of your brand name vis-à-vis competitors, but it also allows you to measure the interactions/relationships of your brand name with other attributes. Simulation exercises also allow you to project the impact on share of preference for various attribute combinations (what-if exercises).

For additional information on conjoint analysis, go here.

© 2015 Brad VanAuken. Reprinted from Brand Aid, second edition, available here. Brand Aid devotes a chapter to brand research highlighting dozens of different brand research approaches.

Market Research

Generally, market research should be left to marketing research professionals. The role of a brand manager is to clearly articulate the questions that the research needs to answer. Ideally, the answers to those questions will impact key decisions and actions. If deep insight is sought, usually some sort of qualitative research is required, such as depth interviews, focus groups and mini-groups. There are now a variety of online qualitative research approaches. Top moderators are skilled with a large array of techniques for probing including guided imagery, laddering and many different projective techniques. If something needs to be quantified, usually quantitative research is the answer.

Asking the right target markets and market segments to participate in the research is critical. Understanding the impact of sample size on confidence levels is also critical. If designed the proper way, quantitative research can be used to understand differences between market segments including those based on demographics, psychographics, product purchase behaviors and product usage behaviors. Question ordering is important so as not to bias subsequent responses. How a question is worded will alter the responses. If a rating scale is used, the number of points on the rating scale and its symmetry or asymmetry will make a difference in the range of responses.

Brand managers need to know what the research can provide and what it cannot provide before it is fielded. Sometimes clients ask for research outputs that the research was never intended to deliver. 

How one invites a person to participate in the research will affect the response rate but also any biasing or the lack thereof.

Today, there are countless marketing research methodologies. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. One of the roles of a competent marketing research professional is to determine the most appropriate technique for the questions to be answered. 

Brand Aid, second edition has one chapter dedicated to brand research and another dedicated to brand equity measurement. It also has a chapter dedicated to understanding the consumer and another to understanding the competition. You can order a copy of the book here.

Brand Research a Must for Brand Positioning

Our primary focus is brand strategy and repositioning based on deep customer insight. Many organizations will ask us to reposition their brands but are reluctant to conduct the necessary customer research at the beginning of the brand repositioning process. They will say, “We conduct ongoing customer satisfaction research,” or “We do product research quite frequently” or “We measured our brand’s equity five years ago” or “We talk with our customers all of the time.” But, do they know which brands have the highest top-of-mind unaided awareness within the relevant product categories? Do they know how their brand is perceived? Do they know the top-of-mind associations for their brand? Do they know their brand’s personality? Do they know if their customers can relate to their brand emotionally? Do they know how attitudinally loyal their customers are to their brand? Do they know the most important brand and category benefits and how their brand stacks up against the competition in delivering against these benefits? Do they know their brand’s perceived strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis the competition? Have they identified their brand’s positioning vulnerabilities and opportunities? Do they know whether their brand is perceived to deliver a good value for the price paid? Is their brand perceived to be vital or resting on its laurels? Is it perceived to be innovative, responsive, trustworthy, reliable or friendly? Do they understand how these perceptions vary across various customer segments?

Successful brand repositioning requires intuition, creativity, insight, analysis and a deep understanding of the customer and his or her perceptions. The insight, analysis and deep understanding are largely informed by rigorous brand research. Repositioning a brand without research is akin to painting a masterpiece with one’s eyes closed. Neither is a very good idea.

© 2015 by Brad VanAuken

Understanding the Customer

Brand naming, brand positioning, brand architecture, product design, package design, advertising campaigns - what do all of these and every other marketing component have in common? To be successful, they must be based on a deep understanding of the customer, including his beliefs, attitudes, values, hopes, fears, desires and needs.

I continue to be surprised by how many of our clients lack this customer insight. They create new brands and sub-brands without it. They name brands without it. The create tag lines without it. They design products without it. They create new packaging without it. And they even develop new advertising campaigns without it.

Every organization should have resources and processes/mechanisms to gain deep customer insight. This could be in the form of consumer managers, marketing research professionals, salesforce feedback mechanisms, customer co-creation processes or something else.

Related to this is the belief that "our brand is for everyone," giving the marketer a "pass" on creating more focused marketing messages and campaigns. "We can't say anything in particular because our brand appeals to such a large cross-section of people."

Central to brands are their focus and targeting. This is what makes them relevant and compelling. Take the time to get to know your customers so that you are able to focus all that you do for greatest advantage based on their particular beliefs, attitudes, values, hopes, fears, desires and needs.

I wish you every success with this.

Qualitative Research Leads to Emotionally Compelling Brands

Some brand managers with whom I talk are still are thinking in terms of product functions and features as the brand’s primary point of difference. Don’t get me wrong, it is important to have unique or superior product features. It is also important to offer exceptional customer service. But functionality, even unique functionality, only goes so far when creating highly compelling brands. In making decisions, people are primarily driven by their emotions. This has been demonstrated repeatedly in psychology, social science and marketing studies.  Emotions are usually driven by factors much more invisible than product functions and features. This is where qualitative research comes into play. 

Qualitative research can uncover deep emotional drivers. It can uncover self-esteem issues, paths to self-esteem, self-image, beliefs, values, attitudes, hopes, anxieties and fears.  Now this is the stuff that underlies emotions. So, how does qualitative research uncover these?

Whether one is conducting focus groups, mini-groups or individual depth interviews, one can go deep by using some or all of these techniques:

• A wide variety of projective techniques
• Collages
• Sorting
• Laddering
• Guided imagery
• Storytelling
• And more…

When we are asked to help reposition a brand so that it creates a much stronger emotional connection with its customers and potential customers, this is where we start. And when we do, the results can be quite impressive. We usually discover something that no one would have thought of without the help of the qualitative research. Sometimes, after the fact, people will say “Of course. That makes perfect sense.” But, prior to the research, no one had thought of it. To create emotionally compelling brands, start with qualitative research to gain deep customer insight.