Brand and Image
Brands have developed into a key success factor for companies, since profiling one's own offer creates the opportunity to achieve a corresponding price premium in the market and shorten the customer's decision-making process: brands signal trust and attractive values.
In particular, tracking brands over several years offers companies the opportunity to react promptly to changes. In order to do this, qualitative and quantitative methods have to be seamlessly combined.
Identification of Relevant Image Dimensions
The first step in appropriately describing a brand's image involves identifying the relevant dimensions.
They are only relevant if the customer also thinks in terms of these dimensions with regard to the existing
market, and is able to describe the available suppliers/providers.
This is why Vocatus refuses to use standardised lists of image dimensions. True to the GIGO rule ("garbage in, garbage out"), it isn't surprising that the interpretation of such results isn't always straightforward, because although it is possible to use these large, standardised item sets to significantly outline differences between brand images, these differences are nonetheless often meaningless or irrelevant in relation to the market that actually exists.
In addition, standardised item sets ultimately remove any opportunity to ascertain that a market or brand doesn't happen to have an image, because each brand is of necessity assessed in accordance with every dimension, and an image is thus 'forced upon it'.
This is why Vocatus generally conducts corresponding qualitative preliminary research before every image study, its primary objective being to extract the relevant dimensions in which your potential customers actually think and differentiate the various brands.
For this first stage we use tried and tested tools such as repertory grid analysis, which we have developed further; it is able to provide an in-depth record of psychological perceptual scope in a sector-specific manner. We can thus ensure that, within the framework of quantitative data-gathering, these dimensions actually provide you with meaningful and relevant results.
Qualitative Characterisation of Image Dimensions
The dimensions whereby brands vary can refer to totally different brand facets. Depending upon the underlying
brand model that your company pursues, this tends to involve physical aspects such as the reliability of your
products, or psychological brand attributes (such as the appeal your brand radiates) right through to more
superficial brand facets that, for example, characterise the brand's public presence.
As well as extracting the image dimensions in the qualitative preliminary research, it is particularly important to characterise them, since only then can one soundly interpret the relevance and function of the individual dimensions and identify suitable measures whereby one can actively influence one's position in line with these individual dimensions.
Quantifying Brand Awareness and the Importance of the Image Dimensions
Following the qualitative analysis of the image dimensions, it is vital to quantify their significance;
aided and unaided recording of brand awareness is part of the first step in this process. Using brand awareness
as a backdrop, one must furthermore quantify which image dimensions drive the brand personality, the appeal that
is radiated, and ultimately interest in purchase, and the extent to which they do so.
It is therefore not enough to merely describe the various dimensions. In order to then be in a position to deduce an overall image of the brand, it is necessary to ascertain the relative importance of the dimensions in relation to one another and with regard to customer behaviour, and understand this in the light of relevant competitor brands.
However, the danger of falsification means it makes little sense to simply ask the customer about importance. Numerous surveys conducted by Vocatus have shown that respondents are typically unable to make a clear distinction between how pronounced a feature is, and how important it is.
This is why Vocatus basically doesn't survey people in order to ascertain the relative importance, but calculates it using factor-analytical evaluations and regression analyses. This is so that you can rely upon the results and actually tackle the image dimensions that produce the greatest return on investment for each measure.
Differentiating Target Segments and Deducing Recommendations
Once the relevant image dimensions have been recorded and quantified with regard to actual customer behaviour
against the backdrop of relevant competitors, the next analysis prior to the deduction of concrete measures
goes one step further: the perspectives of various stakeholder segments are differentiated with reference to
the relevant image dimensions.
It is possible here to not only observe various customer and competitor customer segments, but also analyse one's own image of the brand, how others see it, and the ideal image.
It is particularly important here in terms of analysing the image (and with regard to acceptance of the measures that are ultimately deduced) that one should at the same time record the internal perspective of one's own staff, and their ideal image. Only then can one identify the leverage points one must primarily tackle.