Branding and Competitive Assessment Research

Brand Awareness and Associations Assessment & Tracking/Positioning & Competitive Analysis

Purpose and Benefits
These studies assess and track brand esteem, brand awareness and brand associations. Strong brands start with high levels of awareness relative to the competition. With high awareness companies can create strong brand associations in the minds of customers. In these studies we use both qualitative and quantitative techniques to identify the most important brand associations – or purchase factors - for a product or service category and then track which competitors “own” these associations. After an initial benchmark study to assess the current picture picture of the market, periodic surveys are conducted to track changes in perception among the competitors

Key Questions Answered:

• What is our brand's level of awareness compared with competitor brands?
• Which competitors “own” the most important brand associations?
• What is the level of loyalty among our customers?
• What are the factors that are creating, or hurting, customer loyalty?
• What is the level of overall brand esteem among the key competitors?
• What are the areas that needs to be improved in order to increase the esteem of our brand?

• Focus groups, triads or metaphor groups
• Telephone or web survey
• Regression analysis to determine strength of associations

Brand Identity Concept Testing & Development
Purpose and Benefits
These studies are comprehensive, entailing several methodologies and a close consultant-client partnership. These studies also typically are done in conjunction with BrandSolutions, a leading brand consultancy (see www.brand.com), to provide branding expertise, perspective and execution-specific recommendations that are often outside the domain of the research firm's area of expertise. This type of study is undertaken either when a company needs to create a new brand identity for itself (i.e., a new company or product) or re-create its brand identity in order to strengthen its competitive position.

Key Questions Answered:

• How is our brand currently perceived?
• What is the optimum position for our brand?
• What is best message to communicate to create this position?
• What words and images will best communicate this message?

Techniques

• Internal executive interviews
• Employee focus groups
• External focus groups/triads
• Telephone or web surveying