Research services: Brand Identity Development

Why conduct brand identity development research?

We have considerable experience undertaking brand identity and communications research for a range of clients. Our expertise in brand research also enables us to contextualise how a brand performs in relation to competitors.

Research is an important tool in the brand identity development process. The process generally requires a sizable investment and isn’t without its risks. Research can offer the ability to track Return on Investment (ROI) and can help to ensure your brand strategy and visual identity work effectively with your target audience before launch. This provides you with the opportunity to adapt your strategy and approach in response to any negative feedback.

It’s vital to understand perceptions, concerns and attitudes towards a brand or rebrand and when developing a new brand identity, it is key to ensure that the new proposition is at least as appealing as the current branding. When dealing with redesigns, existing brand equity and loyalty could be negatively affected. It’s therefore essential that the new brand being developed resonates with the target audience.

Areas of research may include:

• Brand awareness (spontaneous & prompted)
• Brand perceptions
• Brand positioning/brand health check/mapping
• Key competitor analysis
• Perceptions and attitudes towards a proposed brand name or logo
• Appeal and likely impact upon trading performance

Research might entail online surveys, face-to-face surveys, focus groups, or ethnographic studies. In order to eliminate any subjectivity and guarantee robust results it’s important to collect a large enough amount of data.

Online and face-to-face methodologies:

An online quantitative methodology is commonly utilised and allows us to effectively reach a specific target audience. We’ve successfully delivered many research projects using this methodology; it’s efficient and cost-effective. Our online surveys provide respondents with interactive questionnaires which are easy to use so as to keep them engaged and ensuring good data quality.

If a target audience is niche and hard-to-reach we may conduct face-to-face surveys using iPads. This methodology allows us to capture reactions in-situ and guarantees a sufficient number of responses if online research with a particular target group may be inhibitive. Our interactive iPad surveys can include imagery and have the addition of prompted questioning techniques from our trained interviewers.

Final survey content is always agreed following project commission however an example questionnaire structure may include:

• Respondent background (age, gender, SEG, income, industry sector, job role/seniority)
• Reaction to brand identity/concept
• Reaction to brand/product names set forward and creative treatment
• Opportunity to provide suggestions for change/how to tailor approach to attract audience

We also frequently include open ended questions to capture spontaneous reaction to gather qualitative insights into perceptions.

Focus Groups:

Focus groups can be used to delve into perceptions further with a select number of respondents who we feel could provide the most insightful feedback. These may be people who are most positive towards it, or more negative, or fit the ‘target profile’ in mind – for instance.

These groups can be used to explore opinions and reactions regarding brand names/product names, logos and creative concepts/designs and to gather an in-depth understanding of potential customers’ preferences in terms of communications. Our services include:

• Project management by Research Manager with support from Research Executive as required
• Design of recruitment questionnaire
• Recruitment of eligible participants
• Discussion guide design, approx. 60 mins in length to guide direction of group discussion & meet objectives
• Moderation of focus groups
• Arrangement of venue hire & incentives
• Groups recorded on digital audio & transcribed, for analysis of responses
• Full report of findings in PowerPoint

Case Study:

Find out how we conducted B2B brand awareness research for Northgate Vehicle Hire. The company wanted to gain an understanding of how well the Northgate brand is known, and also understood, across its varied target markets. They also wanted to be able to measure current brand awareness and perceptions, in order to support their marketing strategy and the need for a solid marketing budget to carry out that strategy.