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Brand management cannot succeed without research. In this column, I will focus on research that can help with brand creation. The most important consideration in brand creation is the brand’s positioning. Central to brand positioning is knowing who your brand’s target customers are. The first step is to choose the primary, secondary and tertiary targets based upon an assessment of the following:
The ideal target market is one that is large, profitable and growing rapidly. It has strong needs for the product or service and there is a large gap in filling those needs. Generally, low exit barriers are preferable. Entry barrier preference will depend on the size and resources of your company relative to its competition. Low entry barriers will allow quick easy entry for you, but also for potential competitors. Assuming you have found ideal markets for your product or service, the next step is to determine the most beneficial position for the brand in those markets. The ideal position addresses one or two of the most compelling customer motivators uniquely and exclusively. Put another way, brands should choose to ‘own’ one or two customer benefits that are (a) highly compelling and purchase motivating, (b) based on company strengths and (c) not adequately addressed by other companies. Benefits can be functional, emotional, experiential or self-expressive. Customer benefit structures can be uncovered in qualitative research, such as focus groups and one-on-one interviews. Projective techniques, laddering and guided imagery can often help uncover these. The next step is quantitative research that measures the importance of each category benefit and how well your brand and each of its competitors are perceived to deliver against each of those benefits. Benefit importance versus delivery can be mapped for your brand and each of its competitors to visually expose potentially powerful brand positioning opportunities. This research can then be used to create a brand positioning statement including brand essence, promise and personality. This positioning statement can guide the creation of the brand’s identity (visual and other sensory cues), its messaging and its customer touchpoints. Logos, taglines and other brand identity element options can be measured for their congruence with the brand’s essence, promise and personality. They can also be measured for their recognition, recall and preference. Recognition can be tested in the field for different logo options. One can test the greatest distance at which a logo can be recognized in different lighting conditions for different media (from web to storefront) at different times of day. Preference can be determined through a simple customer sorting exercise. Recall can be established by embedding each logo option in with the logos of several other brands (displayed in rows and columns), briefly presenting that logo grouping, and then asking people to recall as many logos as possible. Brand messaging (from taglines to advertising copy) can be tested for congruence with brand position in one of two ways: (1) measuring responses (perceptions and intended behaviors) before and after viewing the crafted message or (2) testing two forms of the crafted message in the marketplace (more expensive split-run technique). Geo-branding I have been working with several geo-brands lately. Geo-brands tend to have many audiences:
Brad VanAuken is president and founder of BrandForward, Inc., a full-service brand management consultancy with clients throughout the world. Previously, Brad was the vice president of marketing for Element K, a leading e-learning company and director of brand management and marketing for Hallmark Cards, Inc. During his tenure as Hallmark’s chief brand advocate, Hallmark received the Brand Management of the Year award. Recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on brand management and marketing, Brad is a much sought after speaker and writer. He wrote the books The Brand Management Checklist and Brand Aid. His free online brand management and marketing newsletter is read by thousands of marketers throughout the world. Brad has a BS degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Email:
vanauken@brandforward.com
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