A product's brand serves several essential functions: distinguishing the product from competitors' items, guaranteeing its quality, encouraging purchase, and speeding up the choice among many alternative options. Besides functional and visual aspects, a brand also impacts the psychological sphere, becoming a symbol of the product's objective and subjective attributes. It satisfies the buyer's emotional needs, emphasizes their social status, wealth, and lifestyle.
Given its identification, warranty, and promotional aspects, it's no wonder that a brand plays such a significant role in product selection and purchasing processes. Alongside price, it is one of the main factors influencing consumers' purchasing decisions, especially in markets where products are very similar, such as FMCG or pharmaceuticals.
Why is brand awareness so important?
Brand awareness among consumers, alongside brand image perception and loyalty, impacts the market influence of brands and plays a role in the purchasing decision process. Brand awareness shortens the decision-making process by giving priority to recognized brands and ensuring consumer expectations are met. It also minimizes the risk associated with purchasing completely unknown and untested brands.
Therefore, to maintain a competitive position, it's worth verifying and increasing consumer awareness of the brand, especially among those groups of buyers to whom the brand's products are primarily directed.
How to measure brand awareness?
The basic, and at the same time lowest level of brand awareness, is its recognition in the consumer's mind. This recognition results from marketing efforts (e.g., using logos or slogans, creating appropriate advertising messages) and recommendations from satisfied users, allowing the brand to be associated with a specific product category.
Verification of brand recognition involves asking buyers (including those from the target group) to name brands they associate with the considered product group. The result of such measurement usually defines:
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Spontaneous brand awareness: Brands mentioned independently and immediately (these are brands that the customer remembers and usually chooses from when selecting a product).
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Top of Mind (TOM) awareness: The brand mentioned first among those listed independently and immediately (this brand is the most remembered and easily recalled by the customer - they are most likely to choose this brand).
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Prompted brand awareness: Brands known to the consumer but mentioned only after being shown a list of options (these brands are recognized by the customer, but the connection is weaker compared to brands mentioned in spontaneous awareness).
How to conduct brand awareness research?
Brand Awareness studies are best conducted through simple survey measurements. Their questionnaires can also address brand perception or loyalty issues besides brand recognition. For limited, local groups of product recipients, these studies can be done independently. However, for nationwide target groups, it's worth outsourcing to experienced research entities with a wide range of methods and techniques. Online panel surveys are advantageous as they can be conducted relatively quickly and economically on a broad and diverse national group of consumers.
- Reaching the target group is crucial in brand awareness research. An online research panel allows for surveying precisely selected respondents. Compared to telephone surveys, it can be done faster and cheaper. Therefore, in recent years, we have seen a significant dominance of CAWI (Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing) in brand research - explains Dr. Monika Jaremków, Director of R&D at the Biostat Research and Development Center.
Common methods include telephone surveys (CATI), field surveys using mobile devices (CAPI), and traditional paper surveys (PAPI). These studies aim to obtain quantitative data but can be deepened. For example, using marketing research through focus interviews - brand recognition is often a component of these. It is also possible to supplement with a thorough analysis of online content, especially published on social media.
Thanks to the chosen research offer's comprehensiveness, the results obtained can address not only brand awareness among indicated (target) consumer groups but also its perception and customer loyalty. As a result, practical recommendations are created regarding optimal ways to promote the brand and shape its positive image.
How much does brand awareness research cost?
The cost of marketing research (including brand awareness research) largely depends on who the brand's clients are. Brand awareness research among individual clients/consumers can be conducted using a Consumer Panel (
online surveys) with a relatively small budget (1.5-3 thousand PLN). More complex analyses targeted at brands with business clients require significantly higher investments.
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Biostat® is a commercial scientific unit with the status of a Research and Development Center granted by the Minister of Entrepreneurship and Technology.
