Brand Research

Branding research can deliver against a wide spectrum of objectives, supporting your organisation in bringing your brand to life, making it recognizable and intrinsically connected to your core values, through focusing on

• Brand (re-)naming
• Brand values & mission
• Brand messaging & communications
• Brand awareness, recognition and perception
• Brand positioning
• Brand equity modelling

Depending on the nature of your organization, you may have a single corporate brand which needs to resonate with all your internal and external audiences. Or you have a range of brands for different parts of your business, different product lines and potentially very different stakeholders.

Whatever your business model, ensuring the cohesion of your brand story, a clear set of values and a well-defined mission are crucial to your success on many levels: as an employer, a player in your marketplace, an investor prospect and as an innovator.

It is important to work with a reputable branding market research agency to support you in creating, maintaining and expanding your brand impact and presence. This requires access to the right participants, experts in designing and conducting your research for you, and the skill to transform the gathered information into genuinely useful output.

Check that the agency not only understands branding research as a field, but how to get the best out of it for your project, your company’s brand, your business goals and the competitive landscapes in which you operate.

• Who will you be working with?
• Will you have dedicated senior resources with deep expertise?

Branding research is a collaborative process, success depends on relationships and expertise.

Ask questions:

• What value will they add?
• Do they push and challenge you or just take what you give them?
• Are they constantly looking for ways to improve what they can deliver?

Quality control of the mechanics is also essential, especially for quantitative research: how will your desired research participants be identified to ensure they match your criteria to deliver a high-quality sample? Which measures are in place to ensure that responses are genuine and accurate?

Ask the agency for relevant case studies from other projects and testimonials from clients who have used the agency you are considering. Check independent review sites like Clutch to read what others have said and see who most closely fits your needs.

Well-designed brand research will support you at every stage by inviting the right people to the conversation, asking relevant and insightful questions, to deliver against your brand objectives within your current and potential markets.

The methodologies used in your branding research will be designed to match your information and strategic requirements and could include

• One-on-one conversations with internal and external key stakeholders
• Small focus groups with employees from key functions
• Full focus groups with customers
• On-line pop-up communities with real-time moderation
• Quantitative on-line surveys

Following the collection of the required information, Arlington Research can offer a host of options for supporting internal buy-in and communications, such as workshops, presentations, custom-made dashboards for easy data access, and much more.

A combination of different methodologies can be helpful to obtain a rounded view, such as conducting both qualitative and quantitative research within the same project. For example, you could develop a set of brand communications through in-depth conversations and groups discussions and then test the best messages with a wider audience to confirm their impact.