February 15, 2023
Eyes4Research
When you think about the world’s biggest brands, what is it about them that captures your attention and makes them memorable? Sometimes, it’s an eye-catching combination of complementary colors or a clean, modern logo, and sometimes it is that unmistakable sound in all of their commercials. Whatever the it factor that makes a brand stand out from its competition, its marketing team likely employed research to learn what is happening in the market and activated that data of what works and what doesn’t work into a successful branding strategy. Here are 4 ways that conducting market research can help shape and strengthen your brand.
Research Helps Brands Avoid Unforced Errors
No one wants to be that brand that tried to capture a new audience and proceeded to fail miserably by misreading the room. Those types of missteps can be difficult to recover from, if it happens at all. But these mistakes are emblematic of the importance of market research when doing anything brand-related, whether it is a single campaign or a full marketing strategy for a product launch.
It’s usually when brands attempt to shift a bit or get noticed by a new demographic that things can go wrong. Women and young people are two target markets that are somehow still deeply misunderstood, even to this day. Market research would help brands learn how to communicate effectively with these two audiences. A good example of this type of misread is the way that brands will change the color of a product to pink, expecting that it will instantly make that product desirable to women. BIC famously tried this with their pens– changing their regular pens to pink and purple, renaming them For Her. Not surprisingly, women balked, and the pens were mocked on national television on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, by Ellen herself.
In another widely criticized move, a Pepsi commercial used the backdrop of the social unrest that followed in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020 to try and connect with a younger audience. In the commercial, Kendall Jenner offers a police officer a Pepsi, in an attempt to create a moment of peace in the midst of chaos. Needless to say, the campaign was ridiculed by nearly everyone and the commercial was quickly taken out of rotation.
Create A Strong Customer-Focused Brand
Developing deep and meaningful connections with an audience that stand the test of time is always a challenge for any brand. Brands cannot be created behind closed doors internally with little to no input from consumers in the market that the brand plans to enter. Using the tools of market research is how brands will gather data, make the necessary connections with consumers to learn what they want from a brand, and remove the guesswork. This is where brands learn how to create loyal customers.
Research is Crucial For A New Product Launch
The launch of a new brand isn’t the only time when market research is necessary. Even established brands need to know where a new product or service will land when it hits the market. Introducing a new product can be tricky– will consumers recognize that product as part of the existing brand? When the insights gained from market research are used, brands can be assured that consumers will indeed recognize a new product as part of their brand. Gaps in the market will also become clear, giving brands a pathway to claim that untapped part of the market and gain a competitive advantage for new products and services now and in the future.
Improve Your Brand Perception With Insights From Consumers
Market research is an essential part of branding, and can be used to establish and improve perception in a number of ways. Elements as seemingly simple as color combination, logo, and even the pitch of a sound in sonic branding, can affect the perception of a brand and needs to be tested via research.
Regardless of what is being sold, a brand needs to have an easily discernible personality. Using the correct research methods such as presenting ideas to a focus group helps brands check in with their audience to learn if the personality that they want to put forward is hitting the desired note, or missing the mark, as in the examples of the mistakes mentioned above. In the case of Pepsi, perhaps they could have learned through research that young people are smarter and more culturally savvy than previously assumed.
Read more about branding and marketing on the Eyes4Research blog. Eyes4Research also has everything you need to collect high-quality insights from consumers. Our panels are comprised of B2B, B2C, and specialty audiences ready to participate in your next research project. Learn more about our specialty panels here.