Branding research and strategy consulting pros work as part of your team as the brand equity engine for your client projects, whether new brand development, brand equity benchmarks, or brand positioning assignments. We help fine tune your strategy. We deliver the marketing insight with the right data and analysis.

Brand equity research studies support your branding strategy programs. Here's how we view the brand equity goals and marketing research implications:

Here are examples of differing goals companies may have for brand equity research:

1. Track the components of brand equity as compared to benchmark and competitive brands.

2. Explore decision options available relating to branding by assessing the depth of brand equity strength of the current corporate or product brands.  A brand name or product line naming change, for example, may provide an opportunity.

3. Assess brand equity power in terms of product or business line extensions using an existing brand or a brand naming variation of the existing brand.

Brand Equity Research Methods

Brand equity market research methodology is straight-forward and our portfolio of marketing research tools and methods provide the needed range of measurements.  As for any study, a brand equity study research methodology is driven by management and research objectives. While most brand equity research studies are viewed as quantitative market research tasks, we may recommend qualitative research if the goals include an exploratory research assessment or evaluation of brand naming alternatives.

Full brand equity research studies often begin with Brand Base research, followed by Brand Qualitative research and targeted quantitative Brand Equity Screening Survey studies.  If the objectives are primarily for brand equity tracking, then we may proceed directly with a quantitative research design and execution.

We build our brand equity research methodology from the following core components.

• Brand Base Research
  Here we gauge the brand equity landscape evaluating existing available research.  Our review includes existing brand architecture of both client and competitive brands. We conduct far reaching interviews with client management, field sales, product development and customer service staff.  We talk to sales people in the channel about their own preferences and their perception of customers.  We cap Brand Base Research with an initial round of qualitative depth interviews among a small sample of client product customers and those loyal to competitor brands.
  
• Brand Qualitative Research
  We employ a unique qualitative methods in brand equity research studies involving the exploration of branding options. Our typical starting point is a small sample round of depth interviews.  In the beginning stages of brand equity development, this method can be far more useful than focus groups which may come later.  Here, we use a non-directive design and style, combined with projective interviewing techniques to uncover buyer motivations and brand perceptions. We do not bombard respondents with a laundry list of questions, but rather, let them talk freely in a wide ranging manner about their brand experience with client brands and competitive brands.  We may continue the qualitative exploration with a larger sample using an online qualitative time-extended method which combines both qualitative and quantitative assessments.  If certain conditions exist, we may add focus group discussions to the qualitative market research work.
  
• Brand Quantitative Research 
  Here we precisely measure with custom and tracking studies the components of brand equity:

  • Brand Awareness

  • Brand Image Associations

  • Differentiating Strength (Perceived Difference) between competing brands

  • Brand loyalty and switching likelihood

  • Confidence

  • Brand name latitude -- the extendibility of the brand in current and proposed product categories.