Your Complete Guide to Analyzing Brand Strength

Brand strength analysis is the process of evaluating the various elements that contribute to a brand's power and influence in the market.

Brand strength analysis isn’t necessarily a single style of research, but a term to summarize the various insights brands can explore to understand their position in the market, such as competitive standings, potential growth opportunities, or standard brand funnel metrics.

Never underestimate the power a strong brand has on customer loyalty, sales, and long-term success. Brands that prioritize and invest in their brand strength are the ones who stay relevant in their markets.

Key factors that build a strong brand

Below are a few facets of brand strength, often measured in consumer research. It’s usually not enough just to measure one of these metrics, but rather use several together to tell a cohesive brand story.

Brand awareness

Building brand awareness is the foundation of a strong brand. It involves increasing your brand's visibility across diverse channels, ensuring it's not just seen but truly noticed and remembered. The goal is to achieve top-of-mind awareness. After all, the more consumers that are aware of your brand, the more opportunity your brand has to be purchased; and the more your brand gets purchased, the more your brand can strengthen and grow.

Brand perceptions

Brand perceptions refer to the subjective thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that current or potential customers have about a particular brand. It encompasses the overall image and associations a brand evokes among its target audience - such as luxury, value, reliability, exclusivity, etc.

Brand perception is not simply what a company says about its brand, but how consumers interpret and experience it. It can be positive, negative, or neutral, and it plays a crucial role in influencing consumer behavior, purchase decisions, and brand loyalty. Understanding and managing brand perception is essential for businesses to build strong, successful brands that resonate with their target audience and drive long-term growth.

Brand equity

Brand equity is the perceived added value that a brand brings to a product or service - beyond its basic products or services. It's the premium consumers are willing to pay, the trust they place, and the loyalty they exhibit, all stemming from their perception of the brand's worth.

Brands can build equity through consistent positive experiences, unique brand associations, and a strong emotional connection with consumers. It’s an ongoing process, fueled by consistently delivering valuable, positive experiences at every touchpoint. When consumers feel a genuine bond with a brand, they become more than just customers – they become loyal champions of the brand who actively choose and recommend the brand to others. As mentioned above, the more people that buy your brand, the more your brand grows.

Brand loyalty

Brand loyalty is one of the most important areas related to brand strength because as mentioned above, loyal customers are not only repeat buyers, they also advocate for the brand to others and are strong contributors to organic brand growth.

Building brand loyalty requires a deep-rooted connection between a brand and its customers. The brand must consistently deliver some level of trust or value that consumers feel they can’t get elsewhere, which garners their retention. Brands with high loyalty consistently deliver on their promises, ensure high-quality standards for their products and services, and provide best-in-class customer service. Part of brand loyalty might also come from a sense of community around the brand, where customers feel connected to both the brand, and their fellow consumers.

By prioritizing these aspects, brands can create a loyal customer base that not only drives revenue but also acts as a powerful (cost-effective) marketing force.

Brand assets

Brand assets are the elements that shape a brand's distinct personality and identity. They can be tangible elements like brand name, logos, packaging, and retail environments, or intangible elements like brand recognition, brand reputation, brand heritage, brand values, or brand experience. It’s the ‘Swoosh’ consumers know from Nike, the robins egg blue consumers know to be Tiffany, and the sleek minimalism that Apple has built its brand strategy and reputation around.

Together, these tangible and intangible assets form the foundation of a brand's identity, influencing how consumers perceive, interact with, and ultimately connect with the brand. By carefully cultivating and managing these assets, brands can create a unique and compelling identity for differentiation in their market.
Back to Table of Contents

Measuring brand strength

Knowing the elements that feed into brand strength and why it’s important to measure, below are a few ways to go about doing so.

Quantitative & qualitative studies

One of the quickest and most customizable ways of measuring brand strength is through quantitative metrics and qualitative findings.

Market research quantitative studies can capture customer feedback on metrics such as brand awareness, brand perceptions, brand preference, customer satisfaction, and brand loyalty (often measured through the advanced methodology - NPS). Qualitative studies, such as interviews or focus groups go more in-depth, probing consumers on aspects such as brand perceptions, brand associations, and sentiments.

Quantitative and qualitative studies can be leveraged on their own, or used together to compliment one another. For example, quantilope’s video research solution, inColor, can be used on its own as a source of feedback, or before/after a quant study on the platform to either prompt/guide questionnaire questions or to follow up on quantitative feedback.

If time and budget allow, brand tracking studies are among the most valuable types of market research, as they allow a brand to benchmark and monitor their KPIs over time for ongoing improvements to see if the changes to their brand are moving the needle.

Tracking market share

Market share is a key indicator of brand strength, reflecting the brand's dominance in its industry or category. A growing market share indicates that the brand is gaining traction and resonating with consumers. Brands can track their market share through publicly-available sources like financial or industry reports, through subscription-based services like Statista, or brand valuation/brand finance information like sales data. Because market share is often a secondary source of data, it could be worth measuring your brand’s Mental Market Share as well (a key metric from Better Brand Health Tracking that’s known to strongly correlate with sales market share).

Monitoring growth rate

Another way to measure the strength of your brand is simply to measure how much your brand is growing. While market share encompasses more of the monetary/sales side of the business, brand growth considers the brand's reach, influence, and long-term potential. Brand growth can lead to increased market share as consumers become more loyal and choose the brand over competitors. However, it's possible to have high brand growth without a significant increase in market share in the short term. For example, Tesla experienced significant brand growth due to its innovative products and strong brand identity, even with a smaller market share compared to established automakers.
Back to Table of Contents

Common challenges for brand strength analysis

One of the main challenges to brand strength analysis is that it can be difficult to isolate the impact of individual elements on brand performance. For example, a high market share could be due to factors such as pricing, distribution, or product features, along with brand strength. External factors like economic conditions, competitor actions, or even regulatory changes can also significantly impact brand strength - which has nothing to do with the brand’s actions itself.

Another challenge is the dynamic nature of brands. Consumer perceptions and preferences can change rapidly, requiring ongoing monitoring and adaptation. Consumer preferences are dynamic, influenced by trends, personal experiences, or even exposure to new information (social media playing a huge role in that). A brand that's strong today might lose its appeal if it fails to keep up with changing tastes or if a competitor introduces a more innovative product. Further, the pace of change in markets is faster than ever before, only reinforcing the need for continued monitoring of the brand.

Lastly, as mentioned throughout the article, there's no single, universally agreed-upon metric for brand strength. Because of this, it’s hard to benchmark how strong your brand really is overall compared to others in your market, without narrowing in on one particular metric.

To navigate these complexities, successful brand management requires a combination of rigorous analysis, a deep understanding of consumer behavior, and the ability to adapt quickly to a constantly changing landscape. Brands that can effectively navigate these complexities are more likely to maintain their strength and relevance in the long run.
Back to Table of Contents

Strategies for enhancing and maintaining brand strength

Enhancing and maintaining brand strength is an ongoing process that requires effort from many different sides of a business. Some key strategies include:

Consistent branding: Ensure that your core brand message and visual identity is consistent across all touch points and resonates with your target audience.
Emotional connection: Build an emotional connection with consumers through storytelling, experiences, and values-based marketing.
Exceptional customer experience: Deliver exceptional customer service at every possible customer interaction.
Product or service innovation: Continuously innovate and evolve your products and services to stay ahead of the competition.
Social responsibility: Demonstrate a commitment to social and environmental initiatives that resonate with your target audience.

By investing in brand strength analysis and implementing effective, diversified strategies, businesses can build powerful brands that resonate with consumers, drive customer loyalty, justify premium pricing, and ultimately, achieve sustainable growth and profitability in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

To start analyzing your brand strength today, get in touch with a quantilope team member!
Back to Table of Contents