Brand Perception: How to Measure and Improve it

The term “brand perception” may sound like another abstract concept in the world of branding, but its significance goes far beyond its apparent simplicity. At first glance, it signifies how a brand is perceived in the market. Yet, the real power lies in understanding that this perception, the very essence of your brand, is not something you, as the brand owner, own outright. Instead, it resides in the minds of your consumers and the wider audience.

When we talk about brand perception, we’re not referring to the physical assets or digital platforms a brand employs. These are merely expressions of the brand, tools designed to influence how consumers perceive it, whether directly or indirectly. The true manifestation of a brand occurs within the minds of the audience, shaped by their experiences and interactions.

Even industry giants like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s acknowledge the evolving nature of brand perception. Traditional advertising strategies no longer hold the same sway. As Joan O’Connor, Coke’s head of brand PR, points out, brand managers are finding it increasingly challenging to control how consumers perceive their products in the age of viral content and social discussions.

The Essence of Brand Perception: Why It Matters

Your customers are the lifeblood of your brand. Their perceptions, opinions, and experiences with your brand are what define its existence. Without them, there is no brand, no business. It’s evident, then, that understanding and influencing their opinions about your brand are paramount to your success. Brand perception isn’t just a marketing buzzword; it’s the emotional connection and collective sentiment your audience associates with your brand. In the following sections, we’ll delve deeper into what brand perception entails, its critical role, and strategies to shape it positively throughout the customer journey.

The Significance of Positive and Negative Brand Perceptions

Positive perceptions of your brand among customers and prospects are invaluable assets. When someone has a positive encounter with your brand, whether through a purchase or an experience, it builds trust. This earned trust substantially increases the likelihood of them choosing your brand over competitors. Furthermore, satisfied customers are more inclined to speak favorably about your brand, showcasing brand loyalty and advocacy. In fact, studies by Yotpo reveal that 60% of customers enthusiastically share their loyalty to a brand with friends and family.

This organic brand advocacy, where your customers essentially become advocates, holds unmatched influence. It surpasses the impact of any other marketing method and is often considered the pinnacle achievement in branding. Therefore, it’s clear how crucial it is for brands to cultivate positive and enduring relationships with their customers.

Conversely, negative perceptions can be detrimental. If a customer or potential customer experiences something negative related to your brand, trust can quickly erode. This is why it’s imperative to establish a positive brand image that not only fosters loyalty but also attracts new customers. It might require multiple interactions and positive experiences to make a substantial impact, but regrettably, just one negative encounter can utterly shatter a consumer relationship.

In reality, people are more inclined to share negative brand experiences with their social circles compared to positive ones. This emphasizes the need for brands to consistently create positive interactions, ensuring that each touchpoint reinforces a favorable image.

Where Brand Perceptions Originate

In the realm of branding, the perception of a brand holds paramount importance as it resides exclusively in the minds of the audience, meticulously molded by their various experiences. Contrary to common belief, branding isn’t merely about creating eye-catching logos or narrating compelling stories. It’s an intricate art centered around sculpting perceptions through an arsenal of strategic tools available to a brand.

Brand Perception Crafted at Every Interaction Point

Whenever we engage with a brand, we encounter meticulously crafted touchpoints strategically placed across diverse customer journeys. These touchpoints are meticulously designed to influence our emotions, thus shaping our sentiments towards the brand, and ultimately forming our overarching brand perception. This influential toolkit includes elements like:

• Positioning: Defining the brand’s unique stance in the market.
• Differentiation: Setting the brand apart from competitors.
• Benefit & Value: Communicating the advantages and worth of the brand.
• Personality: Conveying the brand’s character traits.
• Voice: Establishing a distinctive brand tone.
• Messaging: Crafting meaningful and resonant brand messages.
• Stories: Narrating compelling brand narratives.
• Emotion: Eliciting emotional responses through brand interactions.
• Empathy: Demonstrating understanding and compassion towards customers.
• Logos: Designing memorable and recognizable brand symbols.
• Typography: Choosing fonts that reflect the brand’s identity.
• Color: Employing colors to evoke specific emotions and associations.
• Imagery: Curating visuals that align with the brand’s ethos.
• Activation: Engaging customers through interactive experiences.
• Emails, Coupons, Advertisements, Articles, Webinars, Videos, etc.: Utilizing various mediums and content formats to connect with the audience.

In essence, each touchpoint, whether digital or physical, across all channels provides a unique opportunity for a brand to influence the audience’s perception, nurturing customer loyalty in the process.

Strategic Influences on Perceptions

In the pursuit of shaping perceptions effectively, the arsenal of brand tools mentioned earlier isn’t haphazardly crafted. Instead, each element undergoes a meticulous development process within the broader brand strategy. This strategic approach meticulously molds individual touchpoints and, in turn, crafts unique audience experiences. Here’s a closer look at key elements within influential brand strategies that significantly contribute to the overall brand encounter.

Positioning Strategy

At the heart of the brand strategy lies positioning. It delves into the brand’s unique differentiators in comparison to its competitors and underscores the value of this distinction to the customer. Essentially, the positioning strategy precisely outlines what the audience should prioritize in understanding and recalling about the brand. This pivotal strategy sets the tone for the entire brand development process and shapes the overarching communication strategy.

Brand Personality

The concept of brand personality is increasingly gaining traction as a potent tool for molding audience perceptions. Insights from neuroscience reveal that humans predominantly make decisions subconsciously, driven by the reptilian complex and the emotional limbic system. Much like how we connect with individuals based on specific characteristics and behavioral traits, brands leveraging this understanding gain a strategic advantage. By consciously comprehending their audience, their desires, and their unique personality traits, brands can tailor their communication to resonate with the audience effectively. The more a brand exudes familiarity and aligns with the audience’s preferences, the deeper the resonance it achieves.

Crafting Powerful Brand Messages

In the intricate landscape of modern branding, one of the most potent tools is the brand-messaging framework. While some might perceive brand messaging as a singular “core message,” the reality is, given the myriad touchpoints in contemporary brands, a comprehensive brand-messaging framework or template is essential.

This framework serves as a structured collection of key messages meticulously designed to shape the audience’s perception of the brand. These individual key messages serve as building blocks, influencing specific touchpoint messages across diverse platforms and interactions.

Emotional Narratives: A Compelling Force

Human beings are inherently drawn to stories, a trait rooted in our evolutionary history of passing down knowledge from generation to generation. Stories hold an inherent allure because our instincts promise a reward of wisdom at their culmination. This magnetic pull toward narratives, coupled with our emotional limbic system’s decision-making bias, creates a compelling synergy.

Brands that skillfully envelop their messages within emotional storytelling capitalize on our innate human instincts, captivating both eyes and ears. By tapping into this deep-seated human connection with stories, brands can forge powerful and lasting bonds with their audience.

Fostering Authentic Connections

In the realm of modern branding, authenticity stands as a beacon, guiding brands to connect deeply with their audiences through genuine human emotions. With the digital revolution, the balance of power shifted from brands to consumers, prompting brands to transform into relatable human personas. The days of one-sided communication are relics of the past. In the digital trenches, brands engage directly with consumers, who now demand sincerity and truthfulness, dismissing anything less as mere noise. Honesty, a fundamental element in modern brand communication, is gauged instinctively, making it indispensable.

The Power of Visual Identity

Defining a brand’s personality sets the stage for the characteristics that echo through its messaging. While the messaging framework articulates these traits through language and tone, visual identity breathes life into them visually. An age-old wisdom resonates here: “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” Although a brand transcends a mere logo, the visual identity as a holistic entity plays a pivotal role. When strategic characteristics manifest visually, the brand strategy swiftly begins shaping perceptions within milliseconds of the initial encounter, extending its impact far beyond.

Measuring Brand Perception

Brand equity, the added value a brand provides to a business, is intangible, existing independently of the business itself. Essentially, growing brand equity translates to growing the brand. To gauge this growth, one must measure brand perception since it resides in the minds of the audience. This mental landscape becomes the battleground for measurement, where brands delve into the minds of their audience to understand the intricate web of perceptions, sentiments, and connections that define their brand’s worth.

Engaging with the Audience

From the very beginning, brands embark on building their audience, spanning various platforms. A robust social media presence and an active email list serve as invaluable outreach tools. While public social media posts might not always be the best avenue for candid feedback, private messages, and email exchanges provide a more discreet space to gather genuine insights from the audience.

The Significance of Customer Feedback

Customer feedback acts as a mirror, reflecting precisely how your intended audience views your brand. Positive public perception directly impacts crucial metrics such as conversions and revenue. Exceptional customer experiences create a ripple effect of positive word-of-mouth, bolstering your bottom line and reducing the need for extensive marketing efforts. Investing in market research further opens doors to invaluable customer insights, enhancing overall satisfaction. Initiating brand perception surveys or conducting focus groups allows your audience to share essential insights, helping shape a more positive brand identity.

Harnessing the Power of Social Monitoring

In today’s digital landscape, social media platforms serve as bustling marketplaces of ideas, opinions, and experiences. Platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have become central to effective marketing endeavors. Evaluating your target demographics and desired functionalities guides you to the most suitable platform. Social media offers a fertile ground for enhancing brand visibility, building brand equity, and associating your brand with credibility, value, and solutions.

Unlike in the past, where eavesdropping might lead to a tarnished reputation, today, brands can easily monitor discussions and mentions related to their brand to gauge overall sentiment. Numerous social media monitoring tools empower brands to engage in social listening, gaining profound insights into their brand perception through online conversations.

Online Reviews and Brand Perception

In our digital age, consumers have various online platforms and forums at their disposal to share their experiences with brands, whether positive, negative, or neutral. Monitoring these online reviews and diverse review sites serves as a valuable method to gauge overall brand perception in the market. For consumers in the consideration phase, these reviews often play a pivotal role, either affirming or altering their perceptions.

Final Thoughts on Brand Perception

Several terms are used interchangeably in branding, potentially diluting the importance of others. Brand perception stands out as a crucial concept for brand builders to grasp. It represents the very essence of what a brand aims to shape. When a brand is meticulously crafted with a deep understanding of its target audience and a clearly defined position, it can develop a communication strategy with a strategic plan to cultivate positive brand perceptions.

Ultimately, your customers are the most vital stakeholders in this process. Reflecting on the perception you intend to create in the minds of your audience becomes paramount as you construct and refine your brands. I invite you to share your own brand perception experiences or challenges in the comments section below. Your insights are invaluable.