Brand Perception On Marketing

From the emergence of marketing activities to the present day, brands have made various moves in order to gain a positive place in the minds of consumers. The aim of various advertising campaigns, public relations and social responsibility activities and many other similar activities is to create a concept in the mind of the consumer; Brand Perception.

Considering consumer behavior, we can see that brand perception plays a big role in purchasing habits. According to research, almost 77% of consumers make their purchasing decisions based on the brand name alone.

Especially in today’s highly competitive environment, the fact that users play a big role in their choices shows us the importance of the concept of brand perception.

What Is Brand Perception?

We can define the term brand perception as how your brand is perceived by consumers in the market. It can also be called how users feel about a particular product or service based on their thoughts, feelings and overall experiences with the brand.

Since the competitive environment is much more intense today compared to the past, the concept of I can sell what I produce in brands has lost its validity and quality service that takes into account consumer needs has come to the fore. In other words, it is not how we see our brand, but how we place it in the minds of users.

Let’s say a user purchases a product or service from our brand. Concepts such as the quality of the service the user receives, the communication he establishes with the employees, and the after-sales service will create a positive perception about the brand in the mind of the user.

Of course, the factors that create a brand perception in the consumer’s mind are not limited to these. They play an important decisive role in the elements such as the slogan, visuals, color and smell used.

For example, ask a random person on the street if he prefers Coca Cola or Pepsi. Coca-cola fans might say they like red more than blue, or they like Coca-Cola’s Christmas can designs. They can also discuss why they don’t like Pepsi, for example the taste or the marketing. Essentially, their response reveals brand perceptions of both Coca Cola and Pepsi.

Why Is Brand Perception Important?

While the perception of the brand affects the purchasing behavior of the consumers, it also affects the profitability of the brand a lot. As a user’s trust in the brand increases after each positive experience with your brand, the probability of choosing the brand will increase in case of purchasing against other competitors.

In addition, a good brand perception formed in the mind of the consumer also allows the consumer to inform his social circle about the brand. A study announced that 60% of users tell their friends and family about a brand they are loyal to.

There may also be situations where the perception of the brand is negative. This means a huge disadvantage for the brand name. Consumers will likely turn to your competitors and tell people around them about their bad experience, which will have hard-to-fix results in the short run and cost future customers.

Take, for example, the backlash McDonald’s faced after the 2004 documentary Super Size Me was released. The documentary explored what happened to a person who ate three meals of McDonald’s for a month. The results were shocking. The man gained 25 pounds, significantly increased his cholesterol and body mass, and sustained liver damage.

Customers quickly became concerned about the restaurant’s commitment to health, and many boycotted the business. This eventually led the company to phase out its large fries and beverages. After adding healthy options such as salad and fruit to the menu and the “Every Step Matters” campaign, customer loyalty started to increase gradually.

As an example of positive brand perception, we can show the German retail giant Aldi. The plain and unpretentious clothes of the store employees first attract the attention of the users who enter the Aldi stores. When you investigate why such a big retail giant does not prefer an eye-catching and flashy appearance, and follows such a strategy, you come across an interesting fact.

In a study conducted by Aldi, he found that the European consumer has the idea that the luxury in the store is reflected in the prices. That’s why Aldi presented all its stores and staff in a simple style that is far from ostentatious. With this policy, the consumer believed that Aldi’s cheapness policy was not due to the quality of the products, but to its “frugal” philosophy. In short, with its successful perception management, Aldi has ingrained the promise of offering quality at the most affordable price into the minds of consumers.

How Can We Measure Brand Perception?

It is very important to know how we get a place in the mind of the user. The more positively people position your brand in their minds, the higher the success rate of advertising or different planning will be in the long run.

Many brands can apply different techniques to measure the perception in the consumer’s mind. We can list them as follows;

– Various online or face-to-face surveys
– Data collected online
– Data collection at every point of the consumer journey
– Monitoring social media accounts
– Organizing focus groups and forums
– Reading online customer reviews

To summarize, the brand perception that we will create in the minds of the users will remain as the strongest factor in the intense competition environment with developing technology and media resources.

References

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing