What’s in a Name?
The Importance of Brand Research in Sales Efforts
Close your eyes for a few seconds and think of a brand, any brand. Now, what’s the first thing that comes to mind about that brand?
Almost every brand conjures up specific imagery and associations. Take Coca-Cola, for example. Perhaps patriotism and the stars and stripes come to mind, or maybe it’s just relaxing on a warm summer day. Maybe it’s a childhood memory. Coke is unmistakably iconic, has stood the test of time, and even weathered a re-positioning and formulaic disaster in the 1980s (which eventually led to increased brand loyalty, resulting in various conspiracy theories). Further, it’s always happy to lend its value to everything from restaurant signage to sports sponsorships, in addition to a countless number of innovative new products. It’s in an exclusive club of brands that mean “America” around the world. In parts of the U.S., you can still order a “Coke” and receive a Pepsi, but everyone understands what you meant. Like “Googling” something, a true rarity in the brand world!
Now imagine you’re a soda salesperson for “Pat & Mike’s Pop” calling on a new restaurant in town and up pulls the Coca-Cola truck. You get a quick reminder of the importance of brand value. Selling Pat & Mike’s is going to be an uphill battle.
So, Why Do Brand Research?
As researchers, we’re often tasked with gathering brand metrics in tracking, AA&U, packaging optimization, and various other types of studies. But true brand health, value, personality, and associations are often left unexplored beyond surface level metrics. Further, the brand’s value and application to sales efforts almost always fall short of its potential. Awareness, intention, and some boilerplate attribute ratings are deemed enough in research. Or maybe it’s just a Net Promoter Score that’s given all the weight. More thorough and intensive brand research can uncover several previously unknown opportunities and challenges. A solid first step is to understand the brand’s purchase funnel.
Gathering these metrics for your brand and competitors on an ongoing basis is invaluable in understanding where the brand stacks up, as well as uncovering relative advantages or pain points to address. “We have to invest in more media,” or “we’re losing out at trial,” for example.
Another consideration is understanding how important “brand” actually is. Maybe it’s a category with only a couple of well-known, entrenched players. More often, there’s an ever- changing competitive landscape and brand value is of the utmost importance. But relative to what?
A valuable research tool to measure brand importance comes in the form of a choice-based survey exercise. By including brand name, along with the product or service, varying price levels, features, benefits, and messaging, we can tease out the value of the “brand” in consumers’ minds, relative to other factors such as price and features, and importantly, relative to the competition.
I Have the Coolest Brand!
Once we understand a brand’s funnel metrics and relative importance, it’s crucial to understand what the brand means and continue to monitor it. We’ve talked about Coca-Cola, but the slings and arrows of consumer trends (e.g., “healthy alternatives”), along with unforced errors as happened in 1985, can damage any brand’s reputation and impact what it stands for.
The marrying of qualitative and quantitative research can provide a deep understanding of a brand’s personality and what imagery is associated. A good qualitative program can uncover deep brand personalities and associations. Perceptual mapping of brands and competitors against qualitative and quantitative learnings help understand the “playing field” and determine ways to boost a brand’s personality in some areas, while helping sales staff capitalize on strengths. Customer segments may be considered to determine where brands are losing “perceptual share” or gaining footholds.
How it Benefits Sales Efforts
When you have your brand research in place and know your areas of strength and weakness, arming your sales team with this information can help them in their sales efforts. They’ll know whether they need to spend more time with a prospect on the basics of your business and product (if you have an awareness issue) or whether they should focus more energy on convincing prospects to choose you over other options (if you have a conversion challenge). Overwhelming your sales force with a bunch of slides of charts and tables and data, however, is not how to get them onboard with the brand research that’s been gathered. Rather, show them the implications of the data and what it could mean for interacting with customers and prospects. It will help them be stronger salespeople and close more opportunities.
Also, the sales force can be a good source of brand intelligence out in the field. While anecdotal, what they hear and experience in the field helps provide more color commentary to the data from traditional brand research and can help enhance the overall understanding of why the market is behaving in one way or another.
Knowing more about your brand intelligence, where opportunities lie, which customers to focus on, and how to spend the precious time you have with a prospect by focusing on what matters to them are all key to giving your business an edge. Even when there are the bigger players in your industry, who have been around a long time and have broader name recognition and an easier time opening doors, there’s always room for an upstart with the right bit of intelligence or insight to have an impact. And that big player may also be complacent and not focused on research and improving their brand, leaving an opportunity for others. While Coke may still have the largest market share, the world of refreshment is a whole lot more crowded these days with energy drinks, bottled waters, teas, sparkling waters, iced coffees, and countless other categories. So maybe Pat & Mike’s sales force has a fighting chance after all.
Mike Humphrey
Senior Vice President
Mike partners with clients to deliver timely and accurate insights to address business challenges and strategic questions. Throughout his career in marketing research, he has focused on delivering data-driven insights while keeping a focus on the voice of consumers and stakeholders. Mike's experience includes designing and managing advanced quantitative studies, in addition to qualitative initiatives.
Patrick McGill
Vice President
As an English major who worked in a research firm right out of college, I've since built a career in advertising and marketing communications that allows me the opportunity to be both analytical and creative.
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