At Fluid, we recognise that brand awareness is a vital metric for measuring a brand’s success in the marketplace. However, understanding brand awareness goes beyond just assessing whether consumers recognise a brand name—it also involves determining how often and how easily your brand comes to mind, a concept known as mental availability.
Mental availability, as proposed by Byron Sharp and researchers at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, is critical to influencing consumer purchase decisions. It encompasses the breadth and depth of a brand’s presence in consumers’ minds, including the recognition of distinctive brand assets such as logos, taglines, colours, and even packaging design.
Fluid’s Process for Identifying Top-of-Mind and Overall Brand Awareness
To effectively assess a brand’s top-of-mind awareness (TOMA) and overall brand awareness, Fluid uses a combination of quantitative survey techniques and consumer perception analysis. Here’s how our process works:
- Custom Survey Design: We begin by designing quantitative surveys aimed at capturing consumer perceptions of your brand. These surveys ask direct questions such as:
- “What brand comes to mind when you think of [product category]?”
- “Can you recall any logos, taglines, or other visual elements associated with [brand]?”
- “Which brands are you most likely to consider when purchasing [product]?”
These questions help measure top-of-mind awareness, or how often consumers think of your brand first when considering a purchase in your category.
- Prompted and Unprompted Brand Recall: We also evaluate prompted and unprompted brand awareness:
- Unprompted brand recall measures how many consumers can recall your brand without any clues or suggestions. This shows how deeply your brand is ingrained in their memory.
- Prompted recall involves providing a list of brands and asking consumers which ones they recognize, helping us gauge overall brand awareness and how well your brand is recognised among competitors.
- Distinctive Asset Recognition: To assess the strength of a brand’s distinctive brand assets, we ask survey participants to identify logos, colours, or other visual cues associated with specific brands. This helps us determine which brand assets are most memorable and effective at building mental availability.
- Fame/Uniqueness Grid: Fluid also uses tools like the Fame/Uniqueness Grid, which measures how well-known and distinct your brand assets are compared to competitors. This analysis allows us to pinpoint which assets contribute most to brand recall and which elements may need enhancement.
From Insights to Action
After gathering the survey data, Fluid compiles the results into perceptual maps and brand positioning reports. These tools allow us to visualise how your brand is perceived in relation to competitors and identify areas where your brand can stand out more effectively. For example, during our work with PureHarvest, we used these surveys to evaluate their mental availability in the competitive organic food market. The insights gained allowed us to focus on enhancing the most recognisable elements of their packaging and messaging, which contributed to significant increases in both brand awareness and consumer engagement.
Continuous Monitoring for Long-Term Growth
At Fluid, we understand that brand awareness and mental availability are not static—they require continuous monitoring and refinement. As market trends evolve, we revisit these surveys and adjust branding strategies accordingly, ensuring that our clients’ brands remain top-of-mind for consumers. By consistently applying distinctive brand assets across all touchpoints—from digital ads to physical packaging—we help brands maintain relevance and strengthen their connections with customers.
At Fluid, our approach to brand awareness is rooted in the understanding that mental availability is key to brand success. Through carefully designed quantitative surveys, we assess both top-of-mind awareness and overall brand awareness, identifying the distinctive assets that drive recognition and recall. Whether you’re looking to enhance your brand’s visibility or build a more robust mental availability strategy, Fluid is here to help you navigate the complexities of branding and ensure your brand stands out in the marketplace.
Let us help you build lasting mental availability and brand recognition through data-driven insights and strategic execution.