How can Affligem grow its mental availability with consumers?

Heineken has a number of major beer competitors. The beer market is developing rapidly these days, including the specialty beer sector. Affligem is Heineken's specialty beer and does not want to lag behind the competition. What action points can Affligem take to remain one step ahead? Throughout the research process, Blauw and Affligem continued to consult with each other about the approach, outcomes and next steps. This fitted in seamlessly with Affligem's agile working method and ensured continuous learning and improvement.

How Brands Grow

For Affligem's research, Blauw used the How Brands Grow route. First, by means of workshops with Affligem employees, we examined what the CEPs and DBAs of the beer brand are. Then Blauw conducted a questionnaire among 1,000 participants in which these CEPs and DBAs were scrutinized. They were quantitatively validated. Finally, Blauw organized two workshop sessions in which the results were presented and Affligem itself developed a strategic plan.

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Workshop CEPs and DBAs for Affligem

Blauw first organized a workshop with the Affligem team. The Affligem team consisted of various employees, from brand manager to the person ultimately responsible for communications. During the workshop, two main topics were discussed: CEPs and DBAs. CEPs represent the moments or situations when you want consumers to think of your brand. DBAs are (meaningless) brand elements that are sensorial, such as a logo, color, jingle, font or even smell. Communicated together, CEPs and DBAs create a strong mental link to the brand. Based on previous reports of brand and category research, during the workshop we compiled a long-list of all possible CEPs and DBAs for Affligem.

Questionnaire How Brands Grow

After the workshop, Blauw, in consultation with Affligem's contacts, drew up a short-list based on the long-list. This short-list became a guideline for the online questionnaire that was then sent to 1,000 respondents. These respondents were beer drinkers selected by Blauw, who formed a representative group for all beer drinking in the Netherlands.

Implicit Brand Associations In addition, we conducted an Implicit Association Test (IAT) during the questionnaire, in which we included various beer brands. We presented different associations to the participants. Associations that could fit these beer brands. Under time pressure, respondents indicated the extent to which they felt these associations fit the brand they were presented with. The reaction time of the participants was an important indicator to measure how strongly certain associations are linked to a certain brand. And thus whether they are strongly or weakly anchored in the consumer brain.

IAT for CEPs and DBAs

We also use the IAT to measure the strength of CEPs at various beer brands. What situations or thoughts do participants strongly link to a brand? In addition, the IAT was used to measure the familiarity and uniqueness of the DBAs: do people link the DBA to the desired brand and also only the desired brand? We showed brand elements to the beer drinkers, such as the shape of a beer bottle, a font or logo component, the casing or packaging and the box around it.

Finally, we examined Emotional Connection, the attachment participants feel or do not feel with certain beer brands. This was examined using logos of specialty beer brands. Also for this part, it was important to use an implicit research technique and measure participants' reaction time. In this way, Affligem found out whether respondents unconsciously make a positive feeling or connection with the beer brand and that of competitors, or not. The theory is that consumers often choose more intuitively than they think, and in addition to triggers such as CEPs, DBAs and brand associations, emotions play a big role in this. When a brand is relatively "appealing" (or mainstream) to a large group of people, it is more likely to grow than when a brand is perfect for only a small, select group.

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