Have you ever bought a book because you were attracted by its cover? Probably yes. Naturally, human beings feel comfortable when making informed, educated decisions. That is exactly how branding works and affects consumer behavior.
Brands influence consumer behavior by clicking with the “self-image” of the consumers. Adverts show levels of happiness and types of lifestyles that consumers want to have, and those act as symbols of what the brand represents. The final effect of a brand on consumer behavior will depend on how consumers perceive and relate to the brand.
Want to know more? In this article, we will be discussing the different ways in which branding affects consumer behavior. We will examine why it’s important to know how your branding is perceived by consumers.
Why It Is Important to Understand How Your Brand Is Perceived
Brand perception is the sum of the experiences, attitudes, and feelings people have with a product or service. Having positive brand perception among its target audiences is what moves the needle for brands: 77% of consumers are more likely to recommend a brand to others after having a positive experience with it.
Think about it: Every ad about skincare seeks to sway the emotions of consumers to create a favorable brand perception. They use emotional images to get noticed by consumers. Skincare brands have also noticed that most consumers value beauty, thus, they use beautiful images to spark emotions. But they can’t control which emotions are sparked.
However, it is the customer who decides their perception of your brand. Regardless of the kind of product that you are marketing, the way consumers perceive your brand can make or break it.
It’s the role of brands to understand the consumers and do what it takes to improve their perception of their brand. They can do this by creating a branded TV spot, YouTube ads, or by asking their customers to review their products online. Such interactions can change the consumers’ perception of a brand from negative to positive.
A brand owner may feel they understand exactly what their brand stands for. However, that image may reflect only their own aspirations rather than those of consumers. For example, a study by Brain and Company shows that although 80% of companies believe and say they offer great services, only 8% of consumers agree.
Consumers are the owners of brand perception, not brands. No matter the message you use to promote your brand, your brand is what consumers are thinking and saying about it. When consumers hear, see or interact with a brand, they will develop feelings and thoughts towards it. It is the sum of these feelings and thoughts by all consumers that make up brand perception.
How to Measure Brand Perception
By knowing consumers’ perceptions of your brand, you can understand whether your brand has a positive or negative image. Such insights can help you to make sound decisions as far as promoting your brand is concerned.
The data can help you understand what consumers like or don’t like about your brand. This information will enable you to move quickly to correct any mistakes in your branding to improve consumer perception. Measuring this data over time will show whether or not your brand marketing is making a difference.
There are different ways through which brand managers and marketers can measure brand perception. They include the following:
#1: Surveys and Focus Groups
Surveys and focus groups can help you to measure and improve brand perception. They work by conducting online or face-to-face surveys, asking specific questions that will help you understand how consumers perceive your brand.
#2: Brand Tracking
Brand tracking can help brand owners to understand changes in brand perception over time. It quantifies the returns on marketing campaigns and influences brand strategies.
With the use of the right brand tracking tools, brand owners can measure consumer perception almost instantaneously, breaking data down into the target audiences most important for their brand. They can also compare brand perception across different markets and competitors.
#3: Social Listening
Brand owners can monitor social media platforms for the mentions of their brands. This will help them to know what consumers are saying about their brand. It also gives brands an opportunity to give timely responses to any queries raised by consumers, which is good for improving brand perception.
5 Ways in Which Branding Can Affect Consumer Behavior
Branding shapes the human perception of familiarity and attraction. It plays a significant role in fostering loyal consumers and promoting sales. The following are the ways through which branding affects consumer behavior:
#1: Consumer Perception
When you plant a clear brand message in the minds of consumers, they will personalize the message and begin to adopt the brand. If the message relayed to the target audience is consistent and memorable enough to get the attention of consumers in the first place, it will be like a seed planted into the minds of consumers that will begin to develop into the image of the brand.
The image of a brand is not the product itself, nor is it the marketing message created by marketers. It is a personal perception of the product that has been created in the minds of consumers. If this perception aligns well with the needs of the consumers, there are high chances that they develop loyalty towards it. Temkin Group did a study and found out that companies that make $1 billion annually can make an additional $700 million within 3 years after investing in consumer perception.
#2: Purchasing Decisions
The process of buying begins when an individual realizes that they have a problem that needs to be solved. They then start to look for services to help them solve the problem. For example, you may lose your phone and purpose to buy a new one. You have two options:
Buy the same phone or look for another brand from the options available.
Well-established brands make life easier for consumers when making purchasing decisions. A person with little or no knowledge about phones will prefer an iPhone over a Chinese phone, not because of its features, but because the brand has gone to great lengths to ensure everyone knows who they are.
#3: Peer Influence
According to Nielsen, 92% of consumers trust recommendations from family and friends, thus, a great number of consumers will more likely trust a brand that has been trusted and adopted by their friends and family members. They also extend that trust to other products manufactured by that brand.
According to Esteban Kolsky, 72% of consumers will share a positive experience with at least six people. On the other hand, 13% of unhappy customers will share their experience with at least 15 people.
A marketing approach that highlights the personality of a brand rather than its pricing or features will speak more clearly to the consumers. The impact of this will be greater brand championing and sales.
#4: Status and Prestige
This is the reason why many small business owners will evaluate many logo designs before settling on a perfect one. They understand that an image can communicate values that thousands of written words could only hope to convey.
Branding communicates the perks associated with a brand’s services. For example, consumers buy iPhones because of the prestige attached to them. And it’s worth noting that status and prestige convey more than just high price, they also signify quality!
#5: Builds Trust and Loyalty
Branding will not only capture the attention of your target audience but will also enable your target audience to know your brand. This knowledge is usually followed by consumer trust in the brand. When consumers trust your brand, they will come back to buy your products, again and again, finally giving birth to brand loyalty. Brand loyalty is key to consistent sales and brand growth.
Brand marketers should proclaim the message that their brand is about service and quality while ensuring that customers can testify to it. A positive customer experience, social media presence, and online reviews will speak into your brand’s trust and build loyalty. If your focus is on pleasing your customers, they will come back for more.
Examples of Companies with Strong Branding
Most individuals can build small companies, but to grow substantially, you need an essential ingredient: you MUST be able to create a brand that everyone will love and talk about.
The best brands in the world today did not start with higher capital as some people think. They went through struggles to gain traction and establish their successful brands. You can gain insights from their marketing strategies and use them to your advantage. By borrowing their branding case studies, you may not build a billion-dollar company, but you might come up with powerful branding techniques and improve your profits.
We’ve picked 3 world-famous companies with strong branding and analyzed how consumers responded to their brands:
#1: Apple
Apple is a good example of a strong brand. They build beautiful, innovative computers that are unique and market them in a way that aligns with the desires of the consumers. They target raving fans who can queue for hours and hours just to be the first ones to acquire a new product once it’s released on social media. Apple makes products for their target market, consumers who believe that their products make life easier, better, more fun, and cooler.
Its brand message highlights similar qualities in their customers that they provide in their products: creative, imaginative, and innovative.
Apple doesn’t include pricing in its branding. Instead, it focuses on the value offered by their products and the connections they create with the consumers. Thus, brand managers should focus on telling consumers how valuable their brand is to them and personalize their messages so as to connect with them. This will increase the chances of consumers adopting the brand.
#2: Tesla
Tesla, a luxurious car brand, is more expensive than its competitors. Due to that, they don’t include pricing in their branding, but they instead put focus on the quality of their cars. By focusing on quality features that their competitor brands don’t include in their cars, consumers have forgotten the high prices of Tesla cars. If they had focused on their expensive prices in their branding message, consumers would have preferred cheaper brands. They produce eco-friendly, long-range, and electric cars.
It differs from other gas-powered cars in that its cars are electric-powered. Again, their branding message makes it clear that their cars are different from the standard electric cars because they have a longer range and are of high quality. This way, Tesla has planted the message of “uniqueness” and “quality” in the minds of consumers. That’s why they prefer Tesla cars over their similarities.
#3: Coca-Cola
Perhaps Coca-Cola is the most recognizable brand in the world. Thus, there are a number of branding lessons that we can learn from their past successes and failures.
Pepsi, which is Coca-Cola’s leading competitor, started to gain traction through an ad campaign. Its slightly sweeter taste made it win consistently over Coca-Cola.
The Coca-Cola leaders decided to come up with a response. They made some changes to the Coca-Cola formula, and they branded it as “New Coke”. Coca-Cola lovers became angry. They made the great mistake of not remaining consistent. By changing the flavor of their flagship drink, they unknowingly attacked their own value proposition. After realizing they had made a mistake, they returned Coca-Cola’s original formula to the market and labeled it as “Coca-Cola Classic”.
That’s how they solved the problem.
So, if you want to make changes to the thing your brand is famous for, provide a path for your current customers to continue enjoying what they already like.
Final Thoughts
Consumers are the real owners of brands, not the company. Marketers should ensure that their branding message clicks with the “self-image” of the consumers. Adverts should reflect the levels of happiness and types of lifestyles that consumers want to have.
Branding has a significant impact on consumer behavior. The final effect of a brand on consumer behavior will depend on how consumers perceive and relate to the brand. Brands should focus on telling consumers the value that their brands will add to their lives rather than focusing on pricing. Branding can change the perception of consumers from negative to positive, and vice versa. Thus, brands should be careful when crafting their branding message.
Originally published at https://latana.com.
