Branding stands as a fundamental pillar upon which successful companies are built.
Think of all the top companies you know, your favourites, they’ll likely have a solid brand that you can bring to mind. Indeed, you being able to recall them will be, in large part, down to their branding, marketing and advertising.
At Woven, we create high-end brands that achieve stratgic business goals, that look beautiful and that resonate with target audiences. But how does that actually manifest? How do we know if brand activity is working? One key way is to measure the impact of a brand.
If you’re a marketer or a business leader, you’ll have heard the phrase ‘brand awareness’.
But what do we mean when we say brand awareness? And how do we measure it?
What is brand awareness?
Brand awareness is split into two parts:
Brand recall
This is the ability for customers to think of a brand as the solution to their problems. If you were asked what options there were for food in train stations in London, brands such as Pret, WHSmith and Leon would come to mind.
If you’re in the market for a new laptop, Apple and Windows will probably be top of mind.
When thinking of sports clothing, Nike and Adidas spring to mind. A blender may mean Ninja or Vitamix, toilet roll may be Andrex or Who Gives a Crap.
Successful brands don’t have to be desirable or exciting, but your brain will think of them when you need what they offer. This is brand recall.
Brand recognition
Brand recognition is less complex, it’s the simple act of recognising a brand when you see it.
Logos such as Nike’s swoosh, design such as Coke’s red cans and wordplay from copy pioneers Innocent are recognisable, memorable and cement that brand in your mind. Even if you drink Pepsi and use an Android phone, you still know Apple and Coke — and you can recognise them not just for what they sell but what they represent. (Apple = cool, Coke = happy.)
It’s important to distinguish between recall and recognition as, generally, we can split between the two when it comes to brand measurement.
Measuring brand
Let’s take a look at the various methods of how to measure brand.
Brand mentions
The frequency with which your brand is mentioned or discussed across various channels, including social media, online forums, and traditional media outlets, can give you an idea of how much people are talking about it.
Tracking brand mentions provides insights into brand visibility, word-of-mouth marketing and overall brand sentiment (how people feel about your brand).
Tools such as Brand24 can do this, or for more basic monitoring you can set up Google Alerts.
This is really a mixture of measuring awareness and recall. Are people recommending your brand? Recall. Are they simply mentioning your brand in passing? Recognition.
Direct traffic
Direct traffic refers to visitors who navigate to your website by typing the URL directly into their browser or using bookmarks. (This doesn’t include people typing directly into Google, which is classed as organic traffic.)
An increase in direct traffic signifies strong brand recall, as consumers are actively seeking out your brand. You can measure this with Google Analytics.
Branded search terms
Monitoring branded search terms allows you to track the volume of organic (SEO) search queries containing your brand name.
The prevalence of branded search terms reflects brand recognition and consumer interest in your products or services. You can use Google Search Console to see this data.
Both recall and recognition can be monitored by splitting search terms into different types.
‘Navigational’ brand search terms are those that include your brand but also contain a specific query – indicating the user knows you are the solution to their problem – this would be recall. “EasyJet cheap flights to Spain” would be a good example of this.
‘Generic’ brand search terms are those that don’t necessarily contain a specific query and are people just searching for your brand name.
You can use keyword research tools such as SEMRush to find things that Google Search Console perhaps isn’t showing you. You can even check competitors branded terms.
Social engagement
Separate to brand mentions, followers, shares and interactions can help you assess the impact of social media efforts on brand awareness.
Generally if you are not actively promoting your social media channels through paid means (such as Meta ads) but you have lots of offline marketing and PR activity, you’d expect to see a growth in followers – a good indicator more people are recognising your brand.
Surveys and market research
Conducting surveys and market research studies can help you gather direct feedback from consumers on brand recognition, recall, and sentiment.
Surveys can be designed to assess brand awareness levels, brand associations, and consumer preferences, providing actionable insights for brand strategy development.
One thing to be aware of is not asking “loaded” questions that could drive those being surveyed to produce biased answers.
Surveys are a good way of measuring offline marketing activity and it’s impact on both recall and recognition.
Brand equity measurement
Brand equity refers to the intangible value associated with a brand, looking at factors such as awareness, perceived quality, loyalty and recall.
Measuring brand equity involves assessing consumer perceptions and preferences through quantitative and qualitative research methods, providing insights into brand strength and often leading to understanding areas such as competitive positioning.
This type of research is a lot more involved and costly, but it can be invaluable to brands looking to grow long term. There are general rankings of this such as from Forbes.
Need to boost your brand awareness?
We’re specialists in brand strategy and development. We’ve built all kinds of premium brands, from yachts to property developers, and welcome any questions about how we can help you create — and measure — memorable brands.