Brand research: 3 tips on measuring your brand growth

When you start doing brand research, there are some aspects you really need to think about. Blauw offers 3 tips for getting started with brand research.

1. Measure the unconscious

(Market) researchers are increasingly discovering that people's behavior is largely unconsciously controlled. Consumers are not nearly as rational in making decisions as we think. The reason for choosing a product or service is often not as well-considered, but much more often comes from feeling and intuition.

Implicit Association Test (IAT).

To find out how your target audience's buying process is going, you need to uncover this automatic, intuitive thinking. We call this way of tracking brand growth: implicit measurement. During these measurement methods, respondents have less opportunity to think about their answers or actions. They respond primarily as much as possible.

You deploy this form of brand research when:

• you want to find out the perception, atmosphere, feeling and emotional associations with a subject, a brand, product
• you want to know exactly what position your brand, product or service occupies in the mind of the consumer

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2. Exploratory research first, then testing

When you've been with an organization for some time, you don't always see the opportunities and growth possibilities for your brand. And when you and your own team put together a brand tracker or media tool with in-house marketers or media consultants, blind spots emerge.

Brand research often goes periodically. Every month or quarter a brand tracker is used to measure how the brand is doing. But first, take a step back and look at your brand again with fresh eyes. That's where you often find the eye openers.

Did you know that consumers are barely engaged with brands?

Brains are focused on efficiency and avoiding choice stress. Consumers need to recognize your brand and link it to a specific buying situation. They recognize your brand based on 'Distinctive brand assets', which are brand elements such as colors and font of your logo, but also, for example, a jingle. 'Category entry points' are the situations in which people should think of a brand.

To arrive at an overview of these brand elements and buying situations, you can use qualitative research. Interviews or focus groups with customers and non-customers, or online communities around a specific product category. With techniques such as: diary assignments, photosort and storytelling techniques, you'll uncover the insights you need.

With exploratory research, you'll find out:

• What consumers are doing in everyday life
• and discover how to respond to them
• What brands they buy and why they buy those brands
• How the entire process goes from orientation to purchase
• What triggers there are to choose brand A, B or C

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3. Don't focus on short-term effects

There is an important difference between your brand and marketing. Sales and marketing campaigns are often short-term; you don't build a brand in a few weeks.

Think of your brand as a tanker that you have to get and keep on course. It takes time to set the right course, but once you have everything on track, you don't deviate from it so quickly.

Effects of sales campaigns can be seen much faster in sales figures, but are not always a predictor of long-term effects at the brand level. It takes time to establish a new memory structure. The stronger the memory structures around a brand; the better your brand scores (brand performance). If you don't work on the emotional connections with your brand in addition to your sales activations, the effect of activations sinks in as soon as you stop. By combining short-term sales campaigns with long-term brand campaigns, you achieve the best results.

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