as published on December 30, 2011 by the Dallas Business Journal

Although brand awareness can boost purchase consideration, the actual buying decision is likely to be done well before a customer may be aware of a brand, recent research indicates.

New findings show that buying decisions are triggered rather by a need which sets the buying process in motion.

After making the decision to buy, potential customers often start researching what options are available, even if they are already aware of certain brands.

Being part of the initial consideration set increases a brand’s likelihood of being purchased, but there is still a chance for low-awareness or even unknown brands to be considered if they are discovered while the customer evaluates different options and the offer is compelling, affordable and inspires trust, among other factors.

Thanks to widespread Internet access, the growth of social media and the explosion of information sources on the Web, the evaluation of different options is easier than ever. This is why search engine optimization (SEO) is so important for new and small businesses.

If your brand is unknown or suffers from low awareness, first invest in researching your target markets before you start spending money in launching an awareness campaign or doing SEO, including:

• Needs and purchase occasions
• Category- and product-specific behavior
• Perceived differences between you and your competitors
• Appeal of your value proposition
• Demographic and psychographic characteristics
• Media consumption behavior, including the Internet and social media

Learning how your potential customers make buying decisions will allow you to invest your marketing dollars more effectively.

Marketing researchers are in the business of gathering data, analyzing and providing insights, which marketers, in turn, should use to develop marketing and branding strategies. However, sometimes marketers feel disappointed, when results from branding research show insights that were pretty obvious. They feel they wasted money in branding research, expressing their disappointment by saying aloud “I didn’t need to do research to know that.” My question is always: Why didn’t you act on such obvious insights? The answers are often:

• I wasn’t sure
• Too obvious, there must be something more to it

In a recent article about how insights can be used to build strong brands  by Notre Dame Marketing Professor Carol Phillips, she argues that we should not reject an insight just because it seems obvious. Before we put it aside, we must first ask:

• Does it reveal something about the target?
• Does it relate to the category driver?
• Does it capture how consumers want to feel?
• Does it speak to an enduring value?
• Does it challenge the brand to act in new ways?

I totally agree with Professor Phillips when she says that if you can answer yes to some or most of these questions, chances are you have an insight for building a powerful brand.

Conversely, I think these questions can be used not only to spot relevant insights (pun intended) to help build a brand, but also to assess the quality of the branding research provided. These questions should guide the research design and the analytical approach of any branding research endeavor to be able to obtain actionable insights, obvious or not. A branding research study that can’t answer yes to at least one of these questions is totally useless. Isn’t it obvious?

To learn more about our consumer data service visit Consumer Shopping Behavior Insights. To request consumer shopping behavior data and insights don’t hesitate to contact us.

Today, I did a great webinar in collaboration with Surveyanalytics.com. We had some technical issues, but at least that happened after the main part of the webinar was over. You can check the presentation slides posted at Slideshare.net below.

To learn more about our consumer data service visit Consumer Shopping Behavior Insights. To request consumer shopping behavior data and insights don’t hesitate to contact us.

as published on October 1, 2010 by the Dallas Business Journal

Branding adds a dimension that differentiates a product from others that meet the same need. Regardless, whether the product is a physical product, a service, a retail store, an organization, a person, a place, or an idea, they are all subject to a “branding” process in customers’ mind. In the brand realm, reality is always perception.

As customers’ experience competing products and are exposed to different marketing messages, they associate certain attributes and benefits to these products and perceive differences among competing products based on what they value the most. That’s how brands are born.

Customers’ brand associations may or may not match the intended message marketers want to convey about the brand and the company behind it, which is why it is important to keep an eye on the brand’s health and sources of brand equity with the help of market research.

Branding is about differentiation, which can be rational and tangible (e.g. product performance) or more emotional and symbolic (e.g. what it represents, what feelings it elicits). The sum of all the customers’ associations, perceptions and feelings about a product’s attributes, performance, its brand name, symbols, and the company associated with it gives equity to a brand. Brand equity plays an important role in customers’ purchase intentions and behavior. Companies that track sources of brand equity, how they affect customer behavior, and how they change over time are often steps ahead of the competition.

Measuring brand equity sources requires that marketers have an in-depth understanding of:

• How customers shop for and use the products
• What customers think about the brand and its competitors
• What aspect of awareness and brand image have an impact on customer response

Several qualitative and quantitative research techniques are used to identify sources of brand equity. Qualitative measures can help identify associations to a brand, its strength, favorability and uniqueness. However, quantitative measures are desirable to provide a more solid ground for strategic and tactical recommendations. Quantitative brand tracking studies are often used for this purpose. They act as a marketer’s stethoscope to listen to the brand’s heart and check how healthy it is.

When setting up a brand tracking study, brand managers should include measures of brand awareness, usage, attitudes, and perceptions. Different aspects of awareness such as recall and recognition tell us how strong a brand is, but depending on how and when the purchase decision is made (e.g. at point of purchase or away from it) one may be more important than the other for different product categories.

Usage and customers’ experience with different aspects of product have an impact on perceptions about product performance, but often go beyond product attributes to encompass an overall attitude towards the brand and its maker. In the quest for sources of brand equity, product and non-product related associations and perceptions should be tracked. All these measurements will inform marketers about how to design marketing strategies and tactics that strengthen a brand’s appeal, uniqueness and thus increase its equity.

To learn more about our consumer data service visit Consumer Shopping Behavior Insights. To request consumer shopping behavior data and insights don’t hesitate to contact us.

by Michaela Mora

Posted on April 15, 2010

Brand tracking studies allow marketers to monitor the health of the brand and provide insights into the effectiveness of marketing programs implemented by the company.

WHAT SHOULD BE TRACKED?

Each brand faces different issues, which often required customized tracking surveys. Nonetheless, at Relevant Insights, we always recommend our clients to include measurements of awareness, usage, brand attitudes, perceptions, and purchase intent in brand tracking studies.

• Awareness: both recall and recognition measures should be collected. They are different indicators of the strength of the competition among brands in the minds of the consumers. A brand that first comes to mind in certain situations is more likely to be considered than one that is only recognized when it is prompted to the consumer.

• Usage: this can be measured through recency, frequency of usage, and total spending in the brand, and product category. These brand tracking measures, not only tell us about consumer shopping behavior and preferences, but also are indicators of market share and “share of wallet,” which is the amount of consumer spending a brand is capturing and has a direct impact on a company’s revenues and profits.

• Brand Attitudes and Perceptions: this is usually captured through questions related to brand image and associations that consumers develop as they experience the brand and are exposed to its positioning message through PR, advertising and promotional programs. Many brand associations are often beliefs about product-related attributes and benefits. However, brand associations also include non-product-related and symbolic benefits. Product and non-product associations, as well as those related to price and value are important sources of brand equity and should be part of brand tracking studies. Some brand associations are stronger than others, are more easily recalled and are enough appealing that they become an important factor in a consumer’s decision to buy a brand. Some brands may be perceived as unique, but without strong and favorable brand associations, uniqueness really doesn’t matter (Keller, Strategic Brand Management, 1998).

  Many times, attitudes towards a brand go beyond the product to include attitudes toward the company. We are all aware how Toyota’s image has been tarnished, not only by the car recall due to defective accelerator pedals in several car models, but more so by how the company failed to promptly notify car owners, ending up with a fine of $16 million imposed by the US government. A survey conducted by Consumer Reports in February 2010 reported that the number of Toyota owners who would buy another Toyota next time they are in the market for a new car has declined by 10 percentage points from a survey conducted in December 2009. Another before-and-after-the-recall study conducted by Lightspeed and Ad Age, also showed how the number of Toyota owners that consider the brand reliable has decreased significantly, indicating how fast a brand image can deteriorate when the company doesn’t react quickly enough.

• Purchase intent: measures of likelihood to buy a brand or switch to a competitor are also indicators of brand health and should be part of brand tracking studies, but these questions should be put in context regarding specific product or brand, reason for the purchase, time, channel, price and other relevant factors to the purchase decision, so they can be predictive of actual purchase behavior.

WHEN AND WHO TO TRACK?

Brand tracking studies usually involve collecting quantitative data from consumers on a regular basis. One way to do it is to continuously collect information, which allow us to control for unusual marketing activities, in the analysis, and provide a more representative picture of how the brand stands in consumers’ mind and against competitors. However, this type of brand tracking may not be feasible due to budget and resources constraints, and there are other ways to do it (monthly, quarterly, annually, etc.) that can be equally effective.

When determining the frequency of data collection in brand tracking studies, we recommend clients to consider:

• Frequency of product purchase: for example durable goods with long purchase cycles can be tracked less frequently.

• Marketing activity in the product category: a category where brands are constantly launching marketing programs and promotions should be monitor more often.

• Level of competition in product category: highly competitive product categories, where new products and competitors are constantly trying to break in, should be tracked regularly.

• Stability of brand associations: brands with an established image that don’t show appreciable changes over time, can afford a less frequent brand tracking.

Brand tracking studies are often conducted with current customers, but monitoring non-users of the brand can prove to be invaluable to the development of an acquisition and market penetration strategy in search for business growth.

HOW TO INTERPRET BRAND TRACKING MEASURES?

Given the comparative nature of brand tracking studies, brand tracking measures tend to stay the same over time. However, they should be revised from time to time to assess their reliability and sensibility. They may be stable over time and thus reflect stability of brand associations, but they can also be unable to capture important shifts in the market due to changes in sociodemographic trends, competitive landscape and economic macrotrends.

Another issue with brand tracking measures is defining what constitutes the desirable level of a particular metric. Is a 50% level awareness good enough? It depends. It is all relative to the product category and the competitive environment. In low involvement product categories and those with many competitors, it may be difficult to get very high levels of awareness and strong brand associations, so the benchmark for what it is a good level for a metric differs across industries and product categories.

Finally, each brand tracking study should be customized to capture the brand associations that contribute the most to brand equity and the marketing activities that are effective at strengthening it. The goal is to identify key drivers that have an impact on consumers’ brand choice and purchase behavior and develop marketing tactics that can lead to brand growth and sustainability.

To learn more about our consumer data service visit Consumer Shopping Behavior Insights. To request consumer shopping behavior data and insights don’t hesitate to contact us.