Are you “controlling for size” in your brand studies?
Like, are you ensuring you’re only comparing your brand to others in your same weight class? Because heavyweights & flyweights really shouldn’t fight.
Take these 3 big grocery brands in the US from a big common category.
You do a brand tracker or a U&A. You ask people how the brands rate on all the category attributes: “good for my family”, “trustworthy”, “healthy”, etc.
You find out that 2 brands are about tied, and the third brand (in orange here) has lower scores across the board.
Do you freak out and think, “Oh man! Orange is a weak brand!” Nope.
Because it’s a universal, empirical fact that big brands score higher on category attributes. It’s a law of branding.
In this case, the orange brand is about 25% smaller than the other two (which are about the same size).
See, what you’re partially measuring when you do a brand study with a bunch of category shoppers, is simply how familiar they are with the brands. Srsly.
I mean, if you’ve never tried — or even heard of — “Bitchin’ Bailey’s corn flakes”, you’re not gonna say it’s “trustworthy”, right?
So on this chart, we would expect Lil’ Orange’s scores to be lower, because Lil’ Orange has fewer buyers. Thus more category shoppers are gonna be like, “Uhhhhh, how should I know if it’s healthy?”
After you control for brand size, THEN you can look for interesting stuff. Like why Lil’ Orange is extra low on D, or extra high on G. THAT’s an interesting finding. Maybe.
SO. Some lessons:
★ Control for brand size (weight class) when you do a brand tracker or U&A.
★ Don’t freak out if smaller brands have lower scores among all shoppers.
★ Look for deviations from expected values given a brand’s size. (The math is simple.)
★ Bonus level: pull apart brand buyers & nonbuyers in your study.
Want more brand science in your life?
★ Keynotes for conferences & offsites.
★ 1-day intensives for your company, leadership team, or marketing team.
★ Multi-day brand science training for your marketing team.
★ Brand strategy projects.
★ Coming soon: Brand Science, The Book!