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Senior Customer Research Manager
Great branding isn’t just a creative exercise where marketing teams throw ideas around until something sticks.
Behind the best brands in the world—the ones you’re automatically imagining —there’s a lot of strategy fueled with market research, that has shaped every part of their branding—down to the last curve in their typeface.
The brands you love aren’t built on guesswork. They’re built on specific research that branding experts base their bold choices on. These decisions are some of the biggest and most important any business can make—so why wouldn’t you use research?
In this article, we’ll show you what the best branding teams in the world are doing and using to create the brands that everybody raves about.
Brand research is the systematic collection and analysis of data about your brand, your competitors, and your target market to inform branding decisions. It helps you understand how consumers perceive your brand and what they want from it. Let’s define it more clearly and look at some terminology around brand research, so you can go in with a focused approach.
While these terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there are key differences. Brand research is about gathering new data, while brand analysis is about interpreting existing data. You need both for a complete picture.
Brand auditing is the process of examining all aspects of your brand to identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. It’s more inward-looking compared to brand research, which looks both inward and outward.
But wait, there’s more! Here are some important terms that will help you define your research efforts.
Branding experts don’t just use standard market research tools—they adapt them specifically to create memorable brands people connect with. Here’s how they approach different research methods:
Top branding specialists use surveys to get beyond surface-level questions. They don’t really want to know if you ”like” a logo. They want to know how certain brand elements make people feel, what associations they create, and whether they align with the brand’s core values. For maximum impact, conduct surveys at multiple stages – testing initial concepts, refining ideas, and validating final decisions.
Focus groups allow branding experts to see immediate, unfiltered reactions to brand elements. The best brands use these sessions to observe body language and emotional responses that surveys can’t capture. They might show participants competing brands side-by-side, asking participants to personify each brand or describe what kind of party each brand would throw.
Don’t just list competitor brands. Instead, create detailed maps of the competitive landscape, from your own perspective, and that of the consumer. Analyze not just what competitors say, but what emotional territories they own in consumers’ minds. This will help you identify gaps where new brands can carve out unique positions
Learn where your brand is (and isn’t) working
Make brand choices that will set you apart from competitors, with fast, reliable brand insights from Attest.
Branding is how a company presents itself to the world. It encompasses everything from the company’s name and logo to the way it talks about itself to the public.
Contrary to popular belief, branding is about a lot more than colors and images. A tone of voice, a mission, values—it’s all part of it.
Good branding creates a positive impression in the minds of consumers and helps them remember the company. Great branding makes people fall in love with brands, and follow them almost blindly.
Rather than looking at the standard brands that are named in this context, let’s look at success stories that built brands through smart research. Companies like Trustpilot discovered through their work with Attest that while they had high awareness in the UK, they had medium affinity, highlighting the need to address the concerns of vocal detractors. By using research to inform their strategy, they were able to improve their brand’s trustworthiness.
Or take Lucky Saint, which tested different versions of their proposed ads with Attest before launching their biggest campaign to date. Their research helped them make crucial decisions about logo placement and messaging that led to their most successful Dry January ever.
The secret ingredient in great branding isn’t a massive budget or hiring the modern-day version of Picasso—it’s understanding what your audience truly wants and positioning your brand to meet those needs.
There are many ways that market research can inform your brand strategy, and the benefits can’t be overlooked. If you’re not convinced yet on making brand research part of creating your company’s brand image, these advantages should do the trick.
Branding experts don’t use research just to avoid mistakes—they use it to anticipate how audiences will react to every aspect of their brand. They know that brilliant branding happens when you understand the cultural context your brand exists in.
Take MOMA, who tracked brand awareness and sentiment before and after launching their ATL campaign for Barista edition oat milk. By measuring consumer reactions in advance, they could prove their investment was paying off and understand what messages were resonating most.
Lucky Saint also used creative testing to anticipate audience reactions to different ad concepts before investing in a major campaign. This allowed them to identify and address internal debates about logo placement and copy choices with actual consumer data, rather than guesswork.
Many brands seem to struggle to connect with their audience further down the road. Their brands are often created behind closed doors, with only people in the company giving their two cents on what the brand should look like. That can make it hard for potential customers to connect with the brand, and harder for marketers to achieve brand growth.
That’s why we’d recommend using the best market research tools, so you get a chance to talk to consumers and find out what they’re looking for in a brand. Take out the guesswork!
Brand research shouldn’t only be done when a new brand is created. Launching a new product or service can be tricky. Will potential customers recognize it as a part of your brand?
If you use what you learn in market research 101, they will. Focus on what is happening in that undiscovered territory and find out how you can successfully claim that part of the market with an unbeatable competitive advantage, whether it’s with a new brand or ‘just’ a new product or service for an existing brand.
Market research is an essential part of branding, and it can be used to improve brand perception in a number of ways.
Market research can help you define your brand’s personality, and with the right research methods, you can check in with your audience to see if this personality is hitting the spot—or missing the mark.
The best way to check in with them is through surveys. It helps you gather large amounts of reliable data, and respondents can be honest and open in their answers.
To take the first step in improving your brand perception, check out our free brand perception survey template, with questions to inspire you and get started easily.
There’s more than meets the eye, especially when it comes to branding. Let’s look at some of the visual elements and also the less tangible elements of branding that aid your brand’s success.
A good logo is important for a brand for a number of reasons. First, it helps to create a recognizable identity for the brand. Consumers will remember the logo and be able to identify it quickly. This is especially important for global brands that operate in several countries.
Secondly, a good logo can help to create a positive association with the brand. It can communicate the values and mission of the brand to consumers. A well-designed logo can also be an effective marketing tool, helping to generate publicity and attract new customers.
But a logo can’t do it all. Don’t try to pack everything in it. Choose an important thing people need to know about your brand, an essential element, and try to communicate that through the logo. The rest should come from other elements in your branding.
A strong unique value proposition is essential for branding. In fact, all other elements of your branding will stem from this. It helps set straight what you want to communicate when it comes to values and mission of the brand to consumers, and can be an effective tool to test whether anything you create is aligned with what you want to be known for.
Color is an important element of branding, and can be used to communicate a wide range of messages to consumers.
Different colors can evoke different emotions and reactions, which can be useful for brands looking to create a specific mood or feeling.
For example, red is often associated with excitement and passion, making it a good choice for brands looking to create a sense of energy and enthusiasm. Blue is often associated with trust and reliability, making it a good choice for brands looking to create a sense of security and dependability.
Graphics are another important element of branding, and can be used to communicate key messages about the brand to consumers. They should be simple and easy to understand, so that people can quickly absorb the information they contain. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel, the play or pause button, or anything else people intuitively know.
The tone of voice used by a brand is important for creating a consistent and coherent brand identity. It helps to create a distinct personality for the brand and can be used to communicate key messages to consumers.
See it like this: the tone of voice is as important to a brand as the way you speak is to your friends, family, lovers and colleagues. It matters. It can change how people feel. It makes you easy to recognize.
If you do it right, that is. Your tone of voice should be consistent across all branding materials, from advertising to customer service interactions. It should be friendly, upbeat, and positive, and should never sound condescending or unprofessional. Some brands are wittier than others. If you choose a certain direction, make sure you stick with it. If it’s authentic, this should be relatively easy to do.
When it comes to positioning, it’s important to think about what you want to be known for. What is the one thing that you want people to remember you for? What do you want to be known as?
Once you have this figured out, you can start to create a positioning statement. This statement will encapsulate what your brand stands for and will help to communicate it to consumers. It should be clear, concise, and easy to understand. Don’t overcomplicate things. Being unique doesn’t do any good if people all have a different answer to ‘who you are’.
Branding research isn’t just about gathering generic consumer insights—it’s about uncovering the specific emotional connections and perceptions that will make your brand stand out. Here’s a detailed approach that brand strategy experts use:
Before jumping into research, create a detailed map of everything that influences brand perception. What you are after is:
Gather more than just demographic data to truly understand the psychological and emotional drivers behind brand choice. Solid research typically includes:
When testing brand concepts, don’t just show logos in isolation— create immersive scenarios that test the entire brand experience:
Find out if your creative works with target customers
Guarantee results from your marketing creative and ads by testing them first with your target audience.
Smart brands don’t just research during development—they create ongoing brand monitoring systems:
The final step that separates great branding from good is how research translates into practical guidelines:
Brand research is a crucial tactic for brands who want to stand out from the crowd. If you’re looking to start your brand research to improve your marketing strategy, Attest is the place to go.
We’ve got everything you need to conduct brand research: a smart tool for the competitive analysis part of it, experienced market researchers who will help you ask the right questions and improve your brand’s access with every online survey that’s sent out.
What do you want to know about your brand?
Launch market research for branding to discover what consumers think about your brand.
Try our brand tracker
Brand market research is the process of gathering consumer insights about a particular brand. You look at competitors, what consumers want and how the market has developed. This data can be used to make informed decisions about branding, marketing, and product development. Attest makes branding and market research easy.
There are many different brand research methods, but one of the most effective methods is through online surveys, and Attest is the way to go for that. Online surveys can give you a lot of valuable information about your target audience, including what they think of your brand.You can also use surveys to test new branding ideas before implementing them. This will help you avoid costly mistakes and ensure that your branding is resonating with your target audience. On top of that, add secondary research to get to know your competitors, marketplace and the industry you’re in. Check out our brand tracker template for a head start in building your brand.
Nikos joined Attest in 2019, with a strong background in psychology and market research. As part of Customer Research Team, Nikos focuses on helping brands uncover insights to achieve their objectives and open new opportunities for growth.
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