Are you developing a new brand or re-thinking your existing brand? If so, STOP until you survey!
Why? you may ask. Read on and all will be revealed.
The Brand’s Purpose:
Broadly, the primary role of a brand is to positively interact with its audience to prompt a reaction or embed a lasting impression.
Acting as the tangible multi-sensory representation of an organisation’s vision, mission and positioning strategy, a brand is expertly communicated through its personality, messaging and visual stimuli to grow brand magnetism, otherwise known as ‘brand charisma’.
– It’s how customers and employees (among other stakeholders) quickly judge whether an organisation (or brand) is the right fit for them before committing to brand buy-in, future loyalty and advocacy.
Brand Development – the challenge:
Many brands of all shapes and sizes are heavily founded upon internal decision making, often senior teams making assumptions of what their target audience want. But with so many customer segments, characteristics and behavioural complexities how can they truly put themselves in so many shoes?
Instead, we say don’t be shy and ask your target audience what they want! Carry out a face-to-face or digital survey and you’ll receive rich data with real views and opinions, providing an accurate steer to evolve the brand the way your audience wants it. Remember, customer is king.
This type of survey can be carried out:
– in advance and during a new brand development at key milestones,
– it can be used to validate an existing brand,
– or build the business case for a new one.
Quick Wins:
The idea of involving your target audience during brand development can seem daunting and resource heavy and therefore is frequently overlooked or carried out half-heartedly. However, survey feedback will help maximize brand adoption when it comes to the launch phase so it really is worth the investment.
Ideally, your survey questions will be custom designed specific to your objectives, and Point Creative can help write them, but if resources are tight (or your patience is limited!), below are 5 top brand survey questions to get you underway.
1) Immediate Reaction
– Which logo/brand option appeals most to you?
or
– What characteristic(s) do you feel best represents [Company name]?
2) Alignment with Values
– Which logo/brand option do you feel best represents [Company values]?
or
– Which values do you feel our brand best represents [Company name]?
3) Target Audience Appeal
– How well does the logo/brand (or logo options) appeal to [Target Audience A/B/C]?
(the survey recipient won’t necessarily be the target audience and will need to put themselves in the target’s shoes!)
4) Any suggested changes?
(an open question to welcome feedback that may go beyond the logo/brand options presented before them)
5) Who are you?
(knowing how the survey recipient is connected to the brand will help interpret their response)
There are numerous approaches available to effectively conduct your survey of course, including face-to-face, focus group or telephone methods. For a quick turnaround with real-time results, we recommend a digital survey utilizing the extensive features of Survey Monkey. It’s easy to use, free for up to 10 questions and allows you to add images, videos and format the questions to best suit how you want the user to interact with them.
Want more?
We carried out a similar brand survey for Unity – the new NHS integrated sexual healthcare service. Read more about the brand development journey here.