Brand Awareness: What It Is and How to Increase It

Brand awareness – is the degree to which consumers are aware of a brand and its attributes. A high level of brand awareness means the target audience can easily recognise, identify or recall a brand from just some of its individual attributes. For example, from its name, logo or elements of its corporate identity. A high level of brand awareness ensures a high level of consumer loyalty, is a strong competitive advantage and also makes it possible to charge a brand premium. In the long term, brand awareness ensures a high level of sales: it is quite obvious that consumers are more likely to buy from or use the services of a brand they are already familiar with.

Brand awareness is divided into three levels:

The highest level – is the first brand, or top of mind. At this level, brand awareness is attached to an entire product category, i.e. consumers associate a specific brand with a whole product group represented by one leading brand. For example, Xerox, Jeep or Pampers.

The middle level of brand awareness – is spontaneous awareness, or spontaneous recall. At this level of awareness, consumers can easily name a brand in a certain product category alongside other market players in the same category. For example, if you name the «fast food» category to a consumer, they will name McDonald's, KFC and Burger King. This is the spontaneous level of awareness.

And the lowest level of brand awareness – is prompted awareness, or brand recognition. At this level, consumers recognise the brand only when they encounter one of its attributes: logo, name, packaging, etc. This level is characterised by a low degree of consumer loyalty, and given certain changes on the market, consumers will be ready to prefer another brand's product or service.

How to increase brand awareness?

A high level of brand awareness – is the result of an effective marketing strategy across different communication channels. To increase brand awareness, you need to engage as many of these channels as possible and expand the brand's territory of presence.

What tools and channels are used to increase brand awareness?

Social media. One of the main and simplest channels for brand promotion. Social media make it possible to implement various promotion mechanics and, importantly, to clearly track the metrics that affect the level of brand awareness: impressions, reach, views, etc.

Another tool, more conservative but still effective for various target groups – is direct marketing, which includes SMS or email campaigns, web push notifications, etc. This tool is not so effective for boosting sales, but it is quite effective for increasing brand awareness.

A more trendy and younger tool is influencer marketing and working with influencers. People trust opinion leaders far more than classic advertising. This method of increasing brand awareness may have a smaller reach, but it will ensure a higher level of consumer loyalty, which in the end can work like «word of mouth», ensuring an inflow of new consumers aware of the brand in the long term.

An equally effective tool – is loyalty programmes and promotional campaigns. Loyalty programmes and customer bonuses make it possible to build relationships with customers that will work in the long term. Such customers are most likely to recommend the brand to their friends and acquaintances.

It is important to note here that to achieve the greatest brand awareness, it is necessary to make comprehensive use of as many different tools and channels as possible for promoting the brand and the company as a whole.

How to measure brand awareness?

There is no universal method for this. But brand awareness can be assessed in individual channels. For example, social media metrics, website traffic, the number of product orders or even the number of responses to the company's job postings. For a deeper assessment of brand awareness, you should turn to a third-party consulting or marketing agency that conducts research in this field, using a methodology that includes surveys, questionnaires and other quantitative data collection methods.