Brand Research and Discovery: How Much is Enough?

This is a follow up to my last post where I discussed the differences between brand research and market research and why each has a different role in evolving and managing brands. I had a lot of inquiries from that post but the most common question I received was this: How do I determine the best research plan to evolve or refresh a brand platform (strategy + creative expression)? So I will share my thoughts on that here but of course there is no “one size fits all” answer and these are simply general ideas and suggestions.

Like most endeavors the process to develop a brand research plan should start with a series of questions that get to what we are trying to learn about the current state of the brand.  This could include things like:

-      How well known is the brand? (awareness)

-      How well understood is the brand? (perception and associations)

-      What does it offer and why does it matter? (value proposition)

-      What are the emotional attributes and benefits of the brand? (prestige, pride, etc.)

-      What are the rational attributes and benefits of the brand? (price, convenience, etc.)

-      What other brands is it compared to? (peers, competitors)

-      What are the strengths and weaknesses of the brand?

-      How accessible or approachable is the brand?

-      Who does this brand work best for?

These represent some of the more common questions or dimensions but there could be many others having to do with things like pricing, culture or brand equity. For example a common issue in higher education where I spend most of my time is quality – as measured by things like academic rigor, acceptance rates, and of course third-party rankings. These more specific variables might be secondary to the more universal ones listed above.

Which brings me to the next step - once this list of key questions or variables is established it should be prioritized in terms of what is most important and then used as a checklist of sorts to create an inventory of existing information, insights and past research findings. Brands do not exist in a vacuum so we should always gather and review what is already known and use this data as input to determining the scope of how much new and original research is needed to fill in the gaps. This would include collecting and analyzing things like past research studies, secondary data, and recent strategies and plans. In higher ed this list could include things like accepted student questionnaires (ASQs) from the enrollment function or campaign feasibility studies and alumni engagement data from the advancement area.

Once priorities have been established we can stand back and determine which of our key questions are best answered by qualitative versus quantitative research as well as secondary versus primary research. Again, I must emphasize that there are no formulaic answers here but there are some logical conclusions that can be reached based on what we are trying to achieve. Let me illustrate this with a few simple scenarios:

Measuring Awareness

If one of the priorities is to determine how well known a particular brand is or – put another way to assess its current reach geographically, culturally, or economically – then that is generally best done through quantitative research. A survey focused on measuring awareness can also collect insights such as perceptions and associations but those may be limited in terms of depth and nuance. In other words we may learn that the brand is associated with certain kinds of people, competitors or attributes but we may not learn the deeper “why”. And the why is almost always critical to defining how best to evolve a brand strategy.

Defining Meaning

To truly understand a brand’s deeper meaning – how people actually feel about it and more importantly why they feel that way – qualitative research ranging from individual interviews to group discussions may be of most value because of the ability to dive deep, test ideas ad really understand perceptions at a nuanced level. It also offers a better environment for exploring the boundaries of where a brand can go in terms of its offer, price point, quality or other dimensions of positioning. This is one reason why qualitative research should always precede survey research so that the qualitative exercises can “surface” the issues that we may want to validate through a survey instrument.

Exploring White Space

The two examples above mostly focus on determining where a brand currently stands in the minds of its core audiences. But the primary objective of a brand evolution (or refresh, or repositioning) is about where a brand can go and what it will take to get there. Can your brand become more exclusive or selective? Can it expand from a narrow offer to a broad one? Can it successfully expand into new geographic or demographic markets? These are the “white space” questions and the research needed to answer them should include secondary analysis of peers and competitors, qualitative research to assess meaning and survey research to validate the entire hypothesis.

These three scenarios are some of the most common when considering the scope of a research plan to support a brand evolution. But before I close there is one other important dimension to consider: Who will use the research findings and to what end. I bring this up because it’s important to remember that we often conduct research for very different reasons. Consider the following secondary objectives that could exist within the context of a brand refresh or repositioning:

Stakeholder Alignment

We often interview far more stakeholders on a college campus than we really need to to understand where the brand is today and where it can go. Why? Simply because those stakeholders need to be heard. People support what they help create and the more people we can touch in the process the more likely we are to create alignment around a new strategy. It can be time consuming and more expensive but the benefits generally outweigh the extra effort and investment. This strategy of "oversampling" can impact qualitative and quantitative research. Another example is having internal audiences participate in awareness and perception surveys so alignment between familiar and unfamiliar audiences can be compared.

Creative Inspiration

At the other end of the spectrum may be the amount of research needed to inform and inspire a creative team. I’m not suggesting that writers, designers, producers and other creative participants ignore robust research findings. But it does matter how the finding are shared – in ways that both inform and inspire. That might mean sharing less tables but more tangible manifestations like personas. Or fewer statistics and more verbatim responses carefully curated to support the quantitative findings. And we always make sure that our creative teams spend time on a college campus simply listening and observing everyday life and culture. This gives the research findings more context and makes them more meaningful to people who leverage the right side of their brain toward evolving the brand.

Testing Concepts

Great care should be taken with this area of brand research. A brand is far more than the sum of its parts and is best manifested through a complete experience over time. Thus "testing" discrete elements like tag lines, logos or positioning statements must be done with great care because these elements never exist outside the context of a larger experience or an holistic story. In my opinion it's better to think of these exercises less as testing and more as input gathering and ultimately only one part of the bigger picture. In these cases qualitative research may actually be preferable to quantitative because of the ability to dive deeper and understand nuance and subtlety. For example, is it really better to know that 55% of a large sample preferred a tag line than to really understand why it is preferred by talking more deeply to a dozen stakeholders. There is no right answer here but it is an area to carefully consider.

In summary these are really just some areas to consider when developing a brand research plan that sometimes get overlooked. They help me and I hope they can help you too.