_ Yours Non-Technically: Brand Awareness & Brand Awareness Strategy 101

What is Brand Awareness?

Brand awareness refers to the (level of) consumer familiarity with a brand, its concept and the value it offers. However, a more comprehensive definition also considers the consumer's level of ability regarding 'the awareness Rs', ie level of brand Recognition and brand Recall.

Brand recognition helps customers to find your brand while brand recall helps customers to be loyal. Brand awareness is most important in a very competitive aka 'noisy' market.

Degrees of Brand Awareness (Brief Intro, Examples below)

As suggested by the definition, brand awareness can range in strength. As consumers' awareness strengthens, their awareness advances beyond basic knowledge of the brand concept to the following.

Recognition (among competing brands in a noisy market place based on the brand's distinctive qualities like its name, mascot, logo, color, modus operandi, tagline or other elements of the brand personality). - STRONG

Recall.

aided with brand-specific visuals or other clues. - VERY STRONG
unaided - STRONGEST

More on Brand Recognition

Example: If you forgot your shopping list on which you wrote the brandname of cake mix you want to buy, would you recognize the brand among all the other options, even if you can not remember the name? If you can recognize the brand because of the label's colors, the packaging style, etc, you will have some amount of brand awareness.

Seth Godin once said that a well established brand should remain recognizable to customers, even if you removed the logo and all other signage. Consumers passing such tests despite the lack of the most commonly recognizable brand identifiers have an even higher level of brand awareness.

If your brand fails this test, it is more of a commodity and less of a brand. (Read about how commodities differ from brands). Brand awareness may result from one or several factors that stick in people's minds like unique packaging, striking advertisements, outstanding quality, great customer service, sustainable practices, pricing or brand positioning.

Example: Would you recognize your favorite hotel brand if you awoke in one of their rooms which had no branded materials? Why? With which brands are you able to do this? Why?

More on Brand Recall (1 - Aided Recall & 2 - Unaided Recall)

Aided Recall

Example. If customers recognize the Disney brand when tested with only a clue aka 'trigger' like the Mickey Mouse logo.

Un-Aided Recall

Example. If customers say 'Disney' when tested on the Disney brand with a clue aka 'trigger' like the question, 'Where would you go to have lots of family fun?' In other words, customers can remember the brand by name even without recognizable elements of the brand.

Where do you start brand awareness strategy?

Place your target market at the epicenter of your efforts. You should have already defined your target's profile based on what they value in each part of the marketing mix. (Read about target market avatars and buyer personality types). Integrate brand awareness into each component of the marketing mix. For instance, regarding 'promotions', your design process for packaging and point-of-purchase / POP displays should consistently apply a palette as per the brand style guidelines.

CONTENT RELATED TO BRAND AWARENESS