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Our work with Polaris was invaluable to the college. They helped us to create a brand plan that tied in with the college's strategic plan. The interviews and input gathered from key constituents in the college community helped gain ownership throughout the process. The plan is not only a guidepost for our future but a springboard for our college-wide marketing planning efforts.

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Jacque Pomajzl
Director of Marketing and PR
Doane College

Research provides the roadmap and direction for building strong brands. These six areas of brand research would provide crucial information for proper brand management.


Brand Research Helps Companies Make Decisions

We live in a branded world. Everything is branded, from products to experiences. Some research studies have shown that babies as young as age 18 months recognize brands. And the average three-year-old is familiar with more than 1,500 brands!

Brands play a critical role in purchase decision-making. They become a short-hand for your customers and telegraph certain attributes and qualities to the marketplace, making it easy for the customer to choose your brand. Brands are the customer-facing expression of your business strategy.

Research Helps Build Brands

So why do so many companies know so little about their brands? Brand research is focused on helping companies make the critical decisions that build and enhance their branding. Whether you are just starting to define your brand or whether you have an established brand that you are managing, accurately and timely information is available through brand research.

There are six key areas where you should be looking for branding research to give you the critical information you need to manage your brand:

1) Creating a new brand strategy – Whether you are creating a totally new brand or want to change your brand strategy, information about your competitors’ and your positions in the marketplace is important to understanding and developing your strategy. As was said in Alice In Wonderland, “If you don’t know where you are, then any road will get you there!”

2) Understanding how far your brand can stretch – One of the great things about strong brands is the way they help companies enter new markets, new geographies and new product categories. Leveraging your brand in this way requires that you understand what your brand stands for in great depth.

3) Brand Architecture – Understanding and managing how equity flows throughout your brand/product portfolio is an important element in brand management.

4) Brand Management – Information for brand management in terms of target audience awareness of your brand, perceptions of your brand attributes and benefits and potential opportunities is critical to understanding and managing the brand’s lifecycle.

5) Revitalizing Brands – It happens. In spite of a company’s best efforts, brands lose their way and equity begins to erode. Information is key to being able to bring a tired brand back to life and set it on the path to growth and profitability.

6) Brand Positioning – Differentiation is key to brand strength and positioning is the expression of differentiation. Research to identify the optimal brand position is key to quickly and effectively repositioning your brand.

Contact us to learn more about brand research.