Brand
Research

Brand Research is the foundation for all we do. Our rigorous research methodologies, both qualitative and quantitative, uncover the insights and data that enable the creation of great brands.

Tailored to each client’s unique situation and challenges, our evidence-based approach allows executive teams and boards of directors to make informed decisions based on data sourced from inside and outside the organization.

These main components of brand research illuminate the path forward to brand strategy.

Executive & Brand Council Workshops

Great brands are built from within. To that end, our B2B brand research efforts begin with the creation of a brand council, comprised of key c-suite members and typically including cross-functional leadership from Operations, Sales, HR, Marketing, and Finance. These sessions help us form a picture of an organization’s past, present, and future; its strengths and passions, its market dynamics and key competitors.

Broad internal involvement not only informs the process; it serves to strengthen an organization’s bonds and leads to consensus on a brand promise—one that is truly ownable and differentiating. This in turn helps us create other key brand components, such as an organization’s brand essence and guiding statements.

Brand Audit & Market Opportunity

Critical to the brand research process are a brand audit and a robust assessment of the market opportunity. Here, we employ the Brand Performance Platform™, a scientific, data-driven methodology for brand evaluation, monitoring, and decision support built specifically for B2B brands.

This proprietary BrandingBusiness research platform provides a benchmark for the brand against key competitors, and identifies opportunities to occupy a differentiated space within the market, and to influence positioning. From this foundation, we can identify the best path to building a brand and pursuing growth.

Customer & Influencer Insights

Gaining perspective from external sources is key to the brand research process. Our expert strategists will speak one-on-one with clients’ key audiences—buyers, influencers (such as industry experts and analysts), and channel partners—to hear first-hand about strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

We also employ a proprietary online survey methodology that blends qualitative and quantitative research with crowdsourcing functionality to gather rich, unbiased views and perspectives.

Internal & Stakeholder Insights

Our brand research process also takes us to the heart of an organization: its employees. How do they perceive their organization’s brand? What is the internal culture—and can certain aspects be folded into the new brand?

To gain insight into these and other questions, we conduct one-on-one interviews with key stakeholders, and perform in-office focus groups and online surveys. These interactions allow us to uncover authentic truths about the organization and enable employees and other stakeholders to know they’re a vital part of the branding initiative—that they have a voice in their organization’s path forward.

We have found this component of corporate brand research to be an invaluable part of building a B2B brand from the inside out, and one that is critical for brand adoption at the time of launch.

Employee Alignment & Culture Audit

After we have listened to a client’s internal voices at all levels, and built awareness of the branding initiative and its goals, we look for universal alignment. It’s critical that we’re creating a brand that aligns with the culture—that it reflects what is true and authentic about the organization. A new brand cannot survive if it doesn’t broadly resonate with employees.

Customized for each client, this area of research typically takes the form of an all-employees online survey, asking different, more strategically based questions than a typical employee-engagement survey. It is often augmented by focus groups and other qualitative research.

This effort enables us to create an internal message on a higher level, which informs subsequent branding steps and helps organizations to break down departmental or functional silos.

 

OUR COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH IS BUILT SPECIFICALLY FOR B2B