Brand awareness

Brand awareness is the extent to which customers are able to recall or recognize a brand under different conditions.^[1] Brand awareness is one of two dimensions from brand knowledge, an associative network memory model.^[2] It is a key consideration in consumer behavior, advertising management, and brand management. The consumer's ability to recognize or recall a brand is central to purchasing decision-making because purchasing cannot proceed unless a consumer is first aware of a product category and a brand within that category. Awareness does not necessarily mean that the consumer must be able to recall a specific brand name, but they must be able to recall enough distinguishing features for purchasing to proceed. Creating brand awareness is the main step in advertising a new product or bringing back the older brand in light.

Brand awareness consists of two components: brand recall and brand recognition.^[2] Several studies have shown that these two components operate in fundamentally different ways as brand recall is associated with memory retrieval, and brand recognition involves object recognition. Both brand recall and brand recognition play an important role in consumers’ purchase decision process and in marketing communications. Brand awareness is closely related to concepts such as the evoked set and consideration set which include the specific brands a consumer considers in purchasing decision. Consumers are believed to hold between three and seven brands in their consideration set across a broad range of product categories. Consumers typically purchase one of the top three brands in their consideration set as consumers have shown to buy only familiar, well-established brands.^[3]

As brands are competing in a highly globalized market, brand awareness is a key indicator of a brand's competitive market performance.^[4] Given the importance of brand awareness in consumer purchasing decisions, marketers have developed a number of metrics designed to measure brand awareness and other measures of brand health. These metrics are collectively known as Awareness, Attitudes and Usage (AAU) metrics.

To ensure a product or brand's market success, awareness levels must be managed across the entire product life cycle – from product launch to market decline. Many marketers regularly monitor brand awareness levels, and if they fall below a predetermined threshold, the advertising and promotional effort is intensified until awareness returns to the desired level.

Importance of brand awareness[edit]

Brand awareness is related to the functions of brand identities in consumers’ memory and can be measured by how well the consumers can identify the brand under various conditions.^[2] Brand awareness plays an important role in the consumer's purchasing decision-making process that tends to sustainable business growth and loyalty. Strong brand awareness can be a predictor of brand success. Brand awareness is strengthened by its brand-related associations such as the consumers’ evaluation of the brand and their perceived quality of the brand.^[2] Consequently, brands focus on improving customer satisfaction and invest in advertising to increase consumers’ brand awareness.^[5]

Brand awareness is a key indicator of a brand's market performance. Brands competing in a highly globalized market invest in global advertising and distribution to compete for consumers’ attention and awareness. As the capitalism and global transport contribute to consumer behavior, many marketers regularly monitor brand awareness levels. If these levels fall below a predetermined threshold, the advertising and promotional effort is intensified until awareness returns to the desired level. In marketing planning and brand management, it is important to set objectives to promote brand awareness to motivate consumers to purchase a given brand's products.

People are attracted to brands that reflect their emotions, preferences, attitudes and beliefs. That’s why the process of creating a brand leverages both heart and science. It requires organizations to dig deep into its reason for existence; explore and define the features and benefits of its products and services, identify its values and mission, and create a persona that makes the brand appealing and relatable to its target audience.^[6]

Brand awareness is one of the major brand assets that adds value to the product, service or company. Investing in building brand awareness can lead to sustainable competitive advantages, thus, leading to long-term value.^[7]

Brand equity[edit]

Brand equity is the sum of assets and liabilities relating to a brand, its name and logo, and the sum or difference is the value that is offered by the product or service or a company or the company's customers. For the assets and liabilities to have effect on brand equity, they have to be related to the name or logo of the brand. If the brand's name or logo changes, then, it can either have a positive or a negative impact on the assets and liabilities of the brand, with some of them getting transferred to the new name and logo. The brand equity stands on the assets and liabilities and it can differ from factor to factor such as, brand loyalty, brand name awareness, how a customer perceives the quality of a brand, and other proprietary assets such as patent and trademark.^[8]

Unaided recall tests. where the respondent is presented with a product category and asked to nominate as many brands as possible. Thus, the unaided recall test provides the respondent with no clues or cues. Unaided recall tests are used to test for brand recall.

Aided recall tests, where the respondent is prompted with a brand name and asked whether they have seen it or heard about it. In some aided recall tests, the respondent might also be asked to explain what they know about the brand e.g. to describe package, color, logo or other distinctive features. Aided recall tests are used to test for brand recognition.

Just as different types of brand awareness can be identified, there are a variety of methods for measuring awareness. Typically, researchers use surveys, carried out on a sample of consumers asking about their knowledge of the focus brand or category.

Two types of recall test are used to measure brand awareness:^[31]

In addition, to recall tests, brand research often employs a battery of tests, such as brand association tests, brand attitude, brand image, brand dominance, brand value, brand salience and other measures of brand health. Although these tests do not explicitly measure brand awareness, they provide general measures of brand health and often are used in conjunction with brand recall tests.

To measure brand salience, for example, researchers place products on a shelf in a supermarket, giving each brand equal shelf space. Consumers are shown photographs of the shelf display and ask consumers to name the brands noticed. The speed at which consumers nominate a given brand is an indicator of brand's visual salience. This type of research can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of packaging design and brand logos.^[32]

Metrics used to measure brand effects are collectively termed AAU metrics (Awareness, Attitudes and Usage).^[33]

– creating brand awareness is the primary function of advertising

Advertising management

Attitude-toward-the-ad models

– creating and maintaining high levels of brand awareness is one of the primary functions of brand management

Brand

– detailed overview of how consumers move from awareness through to the actual purchase

Consumer behaviour

Marketing management

– explains how levels of brand awareness change over a product's life cycle

Product life-cycle management (marketing)

– explains how brand awareness changes as different segments of the market begin to adopt a product or brand