Advertising: brand awareness and recognition

Psychology A2 · Consumer Psychology. The idea in plain words, the rules to remember, the mistake to avoid and a worked example, written and checked by Mega Lecture.

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The idea

Children can recognise brands long before they understand what advertising is for. Fischer et al. (1991) asked children aged three to six to match logos to pictures of products. Recognition was high and rose with age. About 91% of six-year-olds matched the Old Joe Camel character to cigarettes, close to the figure for the Disney Channel logo.

Brand awareness is how well consumers can recognise or recall a brand. Brand image is the set of ideas and feelings they link to it. A brand can be well known and still have a poor image.

A slogan is a short phrase that helps people identify and remember the brand and says what it stands for. Kohli et al. (2007) gave guidelines for writing effective slogans.

Rules to remember

Common mistake

Students treat brand awareness and brand image as the same thing. Awareness is knowing the brand exists; image is what you think of it.

Worked example

A shopper is asked, “Name any brands of toothpaste you can think of.” She names two with no list to help. What is being measured?

  1. The question is about whether she knows brands, not what she thinks of them, so it is brand awareness.
  2. She has no list or pictures to choose from, so it is not recognition.
  3. Naming brands from memory without help is the unaided form of awareness.

Answer: Brand recall, the unaided type of brand awareness.

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