A Closer Look at Brand Perception

The Situation:

72% of respondents said it was important for brands in the hospitality and travel industry to be considered “fun” – followed by 69% citing food and beverage brands, and 67% cited quick-service restaurant brands.

(Source: Statista, 2022)

The Opportunity:

Your business may not be part of any category listed in The Situation. Even if it is, you may not include “fun” as a desired brand identity attribute. But that statistic is relevant to all businesses because it highlights an important truth – consumers want certain brands to exude certain traits. They have opinions and expectations regarding a brand’s identity, which can (and usually does) influence their purchase decisions.

That said, I am not suggesting you let consumers dictate your brand’s identity and personality. Consumer wants, needs, and expectations are in a constant state of flux, so you risk losing a sense of authenticity by changing course whichever way the wind blows. However, there is tremendous value in understanding those consumer wants, needs, and expectations as they relate to your brand’s identity. This is where I see The Opportunity, which centers around brand perception.

Traditionally, brand perception insights focus on what customers are thinking, feeling, and saying about your brand. These are certainly key components of strategic brand development, but there are related questions that often get overlooked.

Which brand personality traits are most effective in capturing their attention? Which are most relatable and engaging? Which are viewed as most appealing or appropriate for the brand category? Which are most influential at different points along the customer journey??

Answering those types of questions and monitoring changes over time will equip your marketing teams with key insights to guide strategic decision making. It will help clarify what consumers are looking for and determine which traits to highlight through brand messaging and content, thereby empowering you to strengthen alignment with consumer demand and maintain relevance in highly competitive environments.

By expanding beyond what customers do think and feel to include what they want to think and feel about brands, you will gain added layers of context and deeper understandings for strategic development and evolution.

The Challenge:

Looking back at The Situation, customers indicate “fun” is a desired brand attribute. Having established that, a natural follow-up question is, what does “fun” mean?

If you went to a marketing team and asked for some fun content or fun messaging, they would likely want some clarification and detail. Herein lies a primary challenge when dealing with customer perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. Different words can have different meanings for different people. So, dissecting and understanding those differences is a necessary part of the process for brand identity insights to be actionable. Fortunately, while it is a challenge, it’s not as challenging as it may seem.

The Solution:

With the right approach, seizing The Opportunity and addressing The Challenge can happen simultaneously. Since both are about answering questions to better understand customers, The Solution is conducting market research in pursuit of actionable insights.

Too often I see brands making decisions based on assumptions, best guesses, or outdated data. They do this even though customers want their voices to be heard, understood, and valued. Customers are more than willing – and even excited – to participate in the brand development process, so long as their input is actually used.

So, the key here is being strategic and tactful with how market research is conducted. It’s about asking the right people the right questions at the right time and having an action plan for the insights being gathered.

With regards to brand perception and identity development, here are a few tips for producing actionable insights that will have real-world impact:

Clarify your “Why?” statement.

I truly believe that customer feedback is, has been, and always will be a valuable source for strategic insights. Even with the evolution of data science, behavioral tracking, and artificial intelligence, there are some questions that only the customers themselves can answer. But gleaning truly actionable insights from customer feedback requires a strategic, tactful, and goal-oriented approach to market research.

It is common for brands to dive straight into questionnaire development without first clarifying their why statement. That is, why does it matter what the customer thinks or says about your brand? Why does your team want to hear their opinions about different identity traits and attributes? Why is the survey you plan on conducting important, for both your brand and the customer?

Essentially, you are establishing a statement of intent. You are ensuring there is a clear purpose for the project and strong internal alignment regarding its value. Skipping this step can easily lead to disappointing outcomes, unactionable results, and wasted resources.

Involve relevant stakeholders in the planning process.

As I’ve previously mentioned, the goal here is to produce actionable insights that will guide real-world decision making. So, it’s important to involve the real-world decision makers when planning the project.

Staying on the topic of brand perception and identity development, identify who is most likely to benefit from the resulting insights and get their input. Whether it’s the marketing team looking to create content, the sales department looking to strengthen their pitch, or an executive building overall growth plans, brand perception and identity can have different roles to play. Uncovering opportunities for data-driven impact upfront will help ensure market research produces meaningful results on the backend.

Incorporate follow-up and open-ended survey questions.

When developing the survey questionnaire, focus on depth and detail. Referring to my earlier point about understanding what “fun” means, extend your line of questioning to dig beneath surface-level findings.

If you provide a structured list of brand attributes for respondents to choose from, ask a follow-up question for clarification. What does the attribute or word mean to them? Why did they make that selection?

Furthermore, include both structured and open-ended questions to yield different types of insights. The structured questions will help keep the findings aligned with your overall goals and objectives, and the open-ended questions will provide respondents with the freedom to use their own words. This is often where perspectives are shifted and new opportunities are uncovered, because there are more diverse thoughts, ideas, and verbiage.

My Advice:

Impactful market research is about asking the right people the right questions at the right time. So, rather than sending out one feedback survey to your entire contact list, consider segmenting your audiences to ensure the questions you ask are relevant to them. While a specific topic may pertain to everyone, the question’s phrasing may differ between prospects, new customers, and long-time loyalists.

This type of nuance can affect the accuracy and reliability of feedback survey findings. The more intentional and strategic you are with this phase of survey development, the more confident you can be with the results.

How We Can Help:

Partnering with a customer insights firm, like us at MacKenzie , will provide the structure and experience needed to do things the right way the first time. In such a fast-paced world, effectiveness and efficiency are the keys to staying ahead of competitors. So, this type of partnership tends to streamline processes, strengthen impact, and increase ROI.

In addition to that, we offer an outside perspective that can identify blind spots, uncover opportunities, and provide unique perspectives which may have otherwise gone unnoticed. With an unbiased and goal-oriented mindset, you can rest assured that resulting insights will be accurate, reliable, and actionable. This is not to say that you cannot achieve all these outcomes on your own. But with nearly 40 years of experience, we can certainly add a boost to your efforts.

From high-level strategic guidance to ground-level tactical support, we build each market research project around your unique objectives, situation, and budget. If you would like to learn more about what it’s like to partner with us, I’d love to hear from you! Event just to swap ideas or get an outside perspective on where you’re at, feel free to reach out any time.

Your Turn:

I’d love to see your thoughts and comments about brand identity building and customer perception. How are you balancing brand identity evolution with authenticity? Is customer feedback part of your strategic approach to brand development? How have you seen consumer demand changing over the years, and what are you doing to keep up with the times?

By sharing your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions, we’ll foster a collaborative community where actionable insights are the foundation and collective success is the outcome.

Do you have a stat, trend, or topic you’d like me to write about? Send me a message or share it in the comments. I’ll add it to my ideas list!