General questions
What is Brand Perception Study?

Brand perception study (BPS) researches the perception of your brand in the eyes of your stakeholders, always in relation to your competitors. The perception is evaluated on the basis of attributes, values and personalities which are associated with your brand and its competitors.

Brand Perception Study enables you a quick and detailed evaluation of your brand’s image and its competitive position on the market. It tells you how consumers and/or other stakeholders perceive your brand’s attributes, values and personality in comparison with its main competitors. Such data are the foundation for brand positioning strategies.

Why use Brand Perception Study?

Brand Perception Study is a research and strategic tool that offers fundamental data and support for long-term strategic planning and positioning decisions. It helps you determine and/or evaluate:

  • Perceived Brand Image, which is evaluated on the basis of the main attributes, values and personality of your brand.
  • Perceived Brand Images of your main competitors.
  • Brand Core Elements or the unique and differentiating core attributes, values and personalities of your brand and it's competitors.
  • Brand Position - its uniqueness, potentials for repositioning and possibilities for taking the position that is not occupied yet.
  • Different Evaluations and Indexes, like brand perception index, perceived brand profile index, brand quality index, brand focus index, brand dispersion index ect.
  • Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that derive from the position of your brand regarding the position of its competitors.
  • Characteristics, values and lifestyle (personality) of your Market Segment.
  • Potentials and guidelines for Repositioning decisions. 
  • Comparison of perceptions of different stakeholder groups when conducting more BPS studies at the same time.
  • Potentials of unoccupied places on the market with including a category “none of them” among competitive brands into the study.
  • Changes in your brand's perception when perception is evaluated continuously in a longer time interval.

Based on these results, you will easily:

  • design unambiguous and focused marketing communication;
  • use your communication means more effectively and focused;
  • find a way how to differentiate your brand from other competitors:
  • check the efficiency of your marketing communications – BPS results will clearly show how your communications reflect desired intangible characteristics of your brand.
What is the theoretical background of Brand Perception Study?

Brand Perception Study (BPS) was developed in line with latest theoretical background in the marketing and branding literature.

  1. Firstly, BPS is founded on the fact that when defining the position of your brand, you always have to concentrate on the perceptions of your consumers, not on the reality of the product (Ries and Trout 1986).
  2. Secondly, when studying the perception of your brand and defining its position, you always have to study it in relation with its main competitors. Therefore, the perception and position of competing brands also have to be taken into account, when conducting BPS.
  3. Besides, BPS corresponds with the increasing research on brand image which stresses the importance of intangible attributes in brand positioning and differentiation. Therefore, intangible brand characteristics, like brand values and brand personality, play a great role in BPS. However, tangible characteristic are also taken into account when studying perception. To capture the whole perception of the brand, perceived brand attributes, values and personality are included into the study.
What is the methodology behind BPS?

Brand Perception Study is a quantitative research that uses online survey methodology to gather data on consumers’ perception of specific brand in a wide market structure.

Quantitative approach based on qualitative insights

The specialty of the method is that it derives from a qualitative research of brand perception. The qualitative research uses personal interviews in which respondents associate brands with a range of attributes written on pieces of paper. We have adjusted this method to the online environment, which enables you to get an adequate number of responses, but most of all, a quick and easy insight into the perception of your own brand and its main competitors.

Conduct of the Study

Brand perception Study captures the real market structure and surveys the perception of your brand with relation to its main competitors. The first step is to select 3 to 9 brands that are direct competitors to your brand. 

When the market structure has been defined, you can start studying perception. In the course of the study, respondents associate various tangible and intangible Brand Core Elements to the brands:

  • Brand attributes
  • Brand values
  • Brand personality

With a single click, respondents associate an attribute, value and personality to the brands in the study. Respondents click on a brand for which the displayed element applies to the highest extent.

The number of responses is displayed in real time. During the course of the study, you can see the first analyses. The greatest advantage of the Brand Perception Study is that all analyses and calculations are available immediately after the study has been concluded. 

What is a recommended sampling procedure?

Study’s methodology allows the use of small samples as the studies main output is a qualitative insight into the perception of a brand on a competitive market. Quality results are guaranteed with a sample of around 80 respondents. Analyses of the sample showed that any increases of the sample over 80 respondents would not change the results if you pay attention to certain rules of sampling.

Sampling rules and suggestions

1) When studying brand perception with brand users:

  • Include in the study users of all brands – yours and the competition.
  • No need that respondents use all surveyed brands. Enough is that they use one of the brands in the study.
  • You will get the best results if you include the same number of user of each brand. If you study 9 competitive brands, you will get best results if 10 users of each brand plus any number of users of non-competitive brands fill in the survey. Plans “Plus” and “Premium” include the “data normalization” plug-in, which allows you to analyze normalized data (same number of brand users for each brand).
  • If you do not know which brand a respondent uses, the survey will give you the answer to that question. At the end of the survey, respondents answer the question which of the surveyed brands they use most often.
  • If needed, you can sort respondents according to gender, education, place of residence (urban, rural) etc. This option are available in “Plus” and “Premium” plans.
  • You can choose between two sampling options: you can prepare the sample yourself according to your needs, or you can order the panel with our assistance through the application.

2) When studying brand perception with internal stakeholders:

  • Include as many different stakeholders who are managing your brand within your company. You will get a clearer picture of how people working with your brand see it in relation to the competitors.
  • If you have the possibility, study perception of your brand across various departments of your company (marketing, production, sales) and see how (in)consistent brand perception is within the company.

It is advisable to carry out the Brand Perception Study both with your internal stakeholders and with brand users. You will get many crucial information that will make strategic brand management decisions much easier.

How the questionnaire bias is reduced?

All questions as well as brands among which respondents can choose are displayed in random order. This randomness is two-dimensional: both the order of questions that appear on the respondent’s screen and the logotypes of brands among which to choose, rotate the whole time.

This reduces the possibility of bias caused by the order in which brands are displayed on the screen. In addition, the questions are displayed randomly, in order to remove bias through several questions or statements being displayed in a fixed order. 

For whom was Brand Perception Study developed?

Brand Perception Study is used by people who work with brands and want to get a detailed insight into perception of their brand, its competitive position and/or want to define its profile and core. Such data are fundamental for developing long-term strategic brand plans and taking brand-positioning decisions.

Why should I use Brand Perception Study?

Because you want to make strategic plans and positioning decisions for your brand(s) based on real data, not intuition. Besides, using Brand Perception Study can get you real data from real people and reveal you the real market structure. All it takes is about 30 minutes to create a survey and up to 5 days to collect responses.

How can I see how Brand Perception Study works?

Simply Start Free Trial or follow the process described in the Take a Tour section.

How can I start using Brand Perception Study?

You can start using the Brand Perception Study after creating your own account. You can start with a Free Trial or choose one of the packages in the Plans and Pricing section.

Do I have to install any software to use Brand Perception Study?

No! Brand Perception Study is designed and programmed to work in your web browser without requiring any additional plug-ins or extensions.

Who would take the Brand Perception Study?

Your survey can be filled in by anyone you send the URL of your study to.

How can I create a Brand Perception Study?

Read more about how to get stared on Getting Started or Take a Tour. Or even better. Sign up and start creating your own survey!

Getting started
How do I create a new survey?

Sign in and follow the instructions. Yap, it's that easy. 

Can I change content which I added when I was creating my survey?

All the content added during the creation of the survey can be changed anytime. All you have to do is clicking on your survey and you can already make any changes you want. 

What kind of questions can be inserted in my study?

The main part of brand perception study consists of intangible attributes that consumers ascribe to brands, which can be divided in brand characteristics, brand values and brand personality. Therefore three main categories can be inserted in the study. Yet, other categories and items can be inserted as well if the interest of your study concerns other areas.

Besides brand attributes, additional questions can be added into the study as well.

What general information should be inserted in the study?

Click the Create new survey button located on the left hand side of the "My survey" box to open the “Create new survey” page.

There are 3 content categories you have to fill in when creating a new survey.

  1. First, enter survey details.
    • Title of the study: Enter the title of your survey (e.g. Perception study of car brands; Corporate reputation of car industry; What do you think about different car brands?; etc)
    • Choose language: First, choose the language you want to use in your user interface.
    • Description of the study: If you want to, you can add the description of your study which is only visible in administration area
  2. Secondly, enter Introduction text that will appear to your respondents in the survey. Introduction text will be desplayed to the user before s/he starts with the survey.
  3. Thank you page text: Enter text for the thank you page that displays at the end of the survey.

Do not forget to cklick SAVE in every stage of the survey creation.

How can I add brands into the study?

To enter a new brand, click on the tab Competitive brands that can be found in the navigation on your left hand side (Competitive brands are the second tab under the tab under the Survey setup). Then click the button Add brand and enter requested content:

  1. Brand name: under this section you enter the name of the brand you want to add into the study (e.g. Nivea, Dove, Lush, Body Shop etc.). Brand name will be displayed below the logo.
  2. Logotype: under this section you enter the logo/picture of the brand you want to add into the study (e.g. Nivea, Dove, Lush, Body Shop etc.). Inserted picture will be automatically resized and cropped to fit 120 x 90 px.

After entering brand name and its logo, click the button Submit and the new brand will be inserted into your study. In the same way additional brands can be added into the study. You can find all brands listed under the Brands section.

How can I add Brand Core Elements into the study?

To enter Brand Core Elements, click on tab Brand Core Elements that can be found in the navigation on your left hand side (Brand Core Elements are the third tab under the tab under the Survey setup). 

In the middle part of your screen you will see thre main Brand Core Elements categories. Click the button Add Statement button and enter up to 50-60 characteristics, values, and personalities that describe consumers and brands on your market.

How long is my survey active?

It’s your choice. You can choose the date when survey will automatically expire.

How can I see the responses to my survey?

First, you have to select the relevant study from your dashboard. Next, click on the “Review answers” button that can be found in the navigation on the left side of the screen. You can review answers and filter them according to brands and/or categories.

Billing
What are my payment options?

We only support payments via PayPal at the moment.

Are there any sign up fees or termination fees? Any hidden fees we should know about?

No, we do not charge any additional fees because we think extra fees are not the right way to do business. The price you pay is simply the fixed amount based on the plan you’ve chosen.

In what circumstances am I entitled to a refund?

We’ll give you a refund for a prepaid survey if we stop providing our Services to you for a reason that's not laid out in our General Terms (Terms of Use). You won’t be entitled to a refund from us under any other circumstances.

Can I email the Customer Service Department?

Sure! You can always submit your question in our CONTACT FORM or send us an e-mail to [email protected]

What do I do if my account is suspended?

If your account is suspended, please contact our Customer Service Department via CONTACT FORM or send us an e-mail to [email protected]. One of our representatives will help you reactivate your service.

What is your tax policy?

We will charge you sales tax if your local Tax Board deems us a taxable service.

Can I change the plan after purchase?

No. You cannot change between plans once purchased.

Can I try the service first?

Sure you can. Open up a free account and play around. It has all the basic features that allow you to set up and test your survey. However, there are a couple of advanced features that are only available in our Basic, Plus and Premium plans but not in the Free plan.

What are my payment methods?

We currently support payments with Paypal. You can also request an invoice to be sent to you and we will activate your plan once we receive your payment. Contact us via CONTACT FORM or send us an e-mail to [email protected]

Video Tutorials
How to set up your survey?

See the video to find out how to enter basic information and survey details.

How to define Brand Core Elements?

Watch the video with instructions on how to determine main tangible and intangible characteristics of your brand and its competitors an add them into the survey. 

How to add Competitive Brands?

See how you select and add your main competitors.

How to insert your address book?

Find out how you can import and manage the database of your respondents.

How to monitor responses and the progress of your survey?

See the video and find out how you can keep track of survey completion process.

How can I preview and test my survey?

Watch this example that shows how to preview and test your survey.

How to monitor reports of your survey?

In this video, you can discover what survey results and calculations are available to you.

Legal
Terms and conditions for using Brand Perception Study
  1. Definitions

a. “Service” means service related to the web-survey on knowledge of trademarks among consumers / public.

b. “Provider” means company Formitas, d.o.o., Dunajska 5, 1000 Ljubljana (hereinafter: Provider).

c. “Infrastructure” means application for performing Service and other technical means, needed to perform Service.

d. “Personal identifiable information” also referred as “PII” shall mean any information, defined as personal identifiable information, as defined in Slovenian legislation, especially in Slovenian Personal Data Protection Act (in Slovenian language: Zakon o varstvu osebnih podatkov”).

e. “Client” means person, who is using the Service and who provides e-mail addresses of the Respondent(s) / Potential respondent(s) and/or any other information, necessary to deliver Service. Precondition for using the Service is registration of the Client on the web address: www.brandtools.info

f. “Respondent(s)” / “Potential respondent(s)” means person(s), who receives the Invitation to take part in the Service with answering to the web-survey during the process of providing Services.

g. “E-mail addresses of the Respondent(s) / Potential respondent(s)” is e-mail address, provided by the Client, on which Invitation is sent.

h. “Invitation” is invitation, sent to the Respondent(s) / Potential respondent(s), to take part in a web-survey, which is part of the Service. Invitation is send on an E-mail addresses of the Respondent(s) / Potential respondent(s).

i. “Trademark” means any registered trademark in any jurisdiction, designated to mark goods/services and also non-registered mark, intended for marking goods / services on the market.

  1. Description of Service

The purpose of the Service is to enable various Clients to perform on-line survey on knowledge and perception of any Trademark. After the Client’s registration, needed for using Service, the Client provides e-mail addresses of the Respondent(s) / Potential respondent(s), which will be invited to complete web- survey, related to the knowledge / perception of certain Trademark. Trademark, in relation to which web-survey is performed is designated by the Client.

Before sending invitation the Client shall confirm the content of the Invitation, that shall be sent to the Respondent(s) / Potential respondent(s). Client also formulates content of the reminder, which will be sent to the Respondent(s) / Potential respondents. Additionally the Client shall clearly indicate himself as the person, who invites Respondent(s) / Potential respondent(s) to take part in the web-survey / Service.

In case if Respondent(s) / Potential respondent(s) does not reply to the Invitation, Client has the option to send reminder to said person. To the individual Respondent / Potential respondent reminder can be sent solely once.

Part of the Invitation is also e-mail address of the Provider, which can be used by Respondent(s) / Potential respondent(s) for informing the Provider on any misuse of any information on Respondent(s) / Potential respondent(s) by the Client. With clicking “report abuse” Respondent(s) / Potential respondent(s) informs Provider that potential misuse of any information occurred. Immediately after such report Provider will perform all necessary actions for eliminating probability of misuse.

  1. Need to register

a. For using the service the Client needs to register on-line on a web-page www.brandtools.info.  

b. The Client shall be at least 18 years old. In case if the Client is from jurisdiction, other than Slovenian, the Client shall be at least so old that he has full legal capability according to the relevant jurisdiction.

c. With registering for using the Services the Clients agrees with all terms and conditions for using Service, as out-lined here.

  1. Warranties of the Client

a. In case if e-mail address of the Respondent(s) / Potential respondent(s) represents PII, the Client assures, that he acquired consent from such person to submit such e-mail address in the process of using the Service.

b. The Client expressively warrants that any information, provided during the usage of Service (especially, but not limited to, PII, if any, e-mail addresses, Trademarks etc.) does not infringe any rights of any person in any manner whatsoever. 

  1. Liability of the Client

The Client confirms that he is aware that Provider provides solely infrastructure for performing Service. Therefore the Client shall indemnify and hold harmless the Provider of any claims, related to the using of the Services, directed towards the Provider.

Especially, but not limited to, solely and exclusively the Client is responsible for claims, related to the:

  • Unlawful use of the PII during the usage of the Service;
  • Infringement of any intellectual property rights;
  • Any liability for any direct or indirect damages incurred / connected with using the Service by the Client.

In case if the court or any other competent government / state body finally decides that Provider shall bear any financial or any other burden, which is connected in any way whatsoever to the usage of the Service by the Client, the Client undertakes the obligation to refund such payment/burden to the Provider within 8 (eight) days from recipient of the demand for the repayment from the Provider.

  1. Submitting the information and content of the web-survey

The Client is aware that solely he provides information (Trademark, in relation to whom web-survey shall be performed, list of Respondent(s) / Potential respondent(s) with theirs email addresses…), used during providing the Service. Provider does not collect any information for performing Services at his own initiative or on behalf of the Client.

Provider’s solely function is to assure Infrastructure, necessary for providing the Service. Consequently solely the Client is liable for legitimate collection of all information, provided during the usage of the Service and solely the Client is liable, that usage and/or sharing of any information, submitted by the Client during the usage of the Service, does not infringe any rights whatsoever of any person.

  1. Deleting email addresses

The Client is aware that all email addresses, provided during the usage of the Services are deleted and are not stored once the reminder is sent to the individual Respondent / Potential respondent.

All information, provided during usage of the Service, are deleted permanently after Service is completed. Information are used exclusively for providing Service (sending e-mail with the invitation to take part in the web-survey and sending reminders).

  1. Termination of the account / right to use Service

In case if Provider is informed by any person, that the possibility of infringement of any right of third person exist due to the usage of the Service by certain Client, Provider is entitled to block account of such Client and is entitled to prevent Client’s further use of the Service. Additionally the Provider is entitled to block / delete any information, provided by the Client during the usage of the Service or any information, stored on the Client’s account.

The Client is aware that in such case he is not entitled to demand any compensation for any damage, which might occur with such blocking / deleting of the information.

Provider does not assume criminal, contractual or any other liability, related to the Service. Solely the Client is liable for any criminal / civil / any other consequences of the usage of the Service.

Client will be blocked from using the services especially, but not limited to, in following cases:

  • Any suspect of any unlawful / inappropriate communication, used during using Infrastructure;
  • Any alleged or suspected infringement of any rights of any person (e.g. infringements related to the intellectual property rights);
  • Any alleged or suspected infringement of rights, related to the protection of PII;
  • Using infrastructure to perform SPAM, as defined at www.spamhouse.org;
  • Any other inappropriate action, performed during using the Service. 

In any case Provide will inform competent authorities without undue delay on any actions, which might represent infringement of any applicable laws.

  1. Modifications of this terms and conditions

Provider has the right to modify this Terms and conditions without the need to acquire consent form the Client. Such modifications are valid in advance, from the date of the acceptance and publication on.

  1. Choice of law and jurisdiction

For all aspects, related to the Service, rules of Republic of Slovenia, without provisions of Slovenian international private laws, shall apply.

In case of any disputes, related anyhow with the Service whatsoever, the competent court in Ljubljana, Republic of Slovenia shall decide on such dispute.

 

I confirm that I read and understood this terms and conditions.

Done in Ljubljana; 31.01.2014 

Formitas, d.o.o., Dunajska 5, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Customer help desk

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