Research Tips

Branding and Positioning

Companies, and even many governmental and non-profit organizations, spend a lot of time and money on branding. Through their logo, advertising, and other promotional activities, they hope to create a distinctive, positive image for their organization or products or services, and to associate them with particular values or characteristics. But how do you know if your branding has been effective? Given the amount that many organizations spend on branding activities, it’s surprising that many don’t measure the effectiveness of these activities at all.

Perceptual mapping based on multidimensional scaling is a good technique to use to measure the effectiveness of your branding. This technique uses survey data to plot the position of your brand and its competitors relative to the target audience’s ideal point, using dimensions based on the responses of members of that target audience. Comparing your brand’s position on a perceptual map before and after brand-building activities provides evidence of whether or not your brand-building activities have been effective.