The 10 perception drivers are based on ten fundamental archetypes.

We call
them Brand Archetypes.

They operate in the collective psyche of humankind which can be used to modify
choices and behaviours in relation to a brand. These are:

1) Identity – individuality and uniqueness [who we are]

2) Feeling – emotional impact [the emotional impact of our brand]

3) Thought – communication [how and what we really communicate]

4) Attraction – social intelligence [the impact of the brand on relationships]

5) Energy – competitiveness [how does the brand motivate action]

6) Growth – growth and expansiveness [the capacity to expand]

7) Structure – authority and respect [what we are respected for]

8) Freedom – innovation and unconventionality [how our brand generates

excitement]

9) Spirit – intuition and inspiration [how our brand inspires]

10) Renewal – power and transformation [power of our brand to change

people’s lives]

One strategy of advertising campaigns is to focus on a central theme (e.g. ‘we

offer excellent service’), with the objective of developing specific perceptions
about a brand. Advertising effectiveness is then assessed through examining the
specific link between the brand and the perception through examining the
specific link between the brand and the perception of ‘excellent service’. The aim
is to ascertain whether advertising efforts have made a difference in
establishing, reinforcing or shifting these perceptions. Brand perceptions are
important because they are said to influence consideration and evaluation, and
therefore purchase. They are of particular interest from an advertising evaluation
perspective because short-term sales can be affected by various non-advertising
factors (such as, for example, price promotions) and also the vast number of
people exposed to the advertising may not have an opportunity to purchase from
the category. Analysing effects on intermediate variables can overcome these
limitations. Further, these consumer mindset measures, of which brand
perceptions are one, are considered an important aspect of brand equity due to
their diagnostic ability.

Identifying the effect of advertising on brand perceptions has mostly focused on

examining direct changes in the proportion of respondents who mention the
brand, for specific brand attributes (for example, 46% of people interviewed
thought Brand X was ‘good value for money’ in quarter 2 while 52% thought
Brand X was ‘good value for money’ in quarter 3).
However, these are factors, aside from advertising activity, that can influence a
respondent’s propensity to give a response linking a brand to an attribute. Two
of these are (1) if the respondent uses the brand and (2) the degree to which the
attribute is considered to contribute to category membership, or its
‘prototypicality’. In this research, an approach controlling these two influences is
compared to the more typical comparison of percentage changes. The purpose is
to determine which approach provides greater insight as to the real effect that
the advertising has had on marketplace brand perceptions.

Marketing activities are undertaken with the goal of changing or reinforcing the
consumer ‘mindset’ in some way. This includes thoughts, feelings, experiences,
images, perceptions, beliefs and attitudes towards a brand. Keller and Lehmann
describe five dimensions as being important measures of the consumer mindset:

1. Brand awareness (recall, recognition)

2. Brand associations (strengths, favourability, uniqueness of perceived

benefits and attributes)

3. Brand attitude (perceived quality of, and satisfaction with, the brand)

4. Attachment (or loyalty), and

5. Activity (how much consumers talk about, use, seek out information,
promotions, etc. regarding the brand).

The value of a brand, and the effectiveness of marketing activities undertaken to

affect the consumer mindset about a brand, is therefore often measured by
evaluating changes in perceptual responses on advertised attributes.

Brand perceptions are attributes in consumer memory that are linked to the
brand name. They have been the subject of research for many decades,
particularly since the seminal article by Gardner and Levy (1955), which
articulated that the brand was more than just the sum of functional qualities it
offered. Considered to be a key aspect of brand equity, developing, changing or
reinforcing brand perceptions has long been considered an outcome of effective
advertising, n that these perceptions and associations can influence the
response to subsequent marketing activity.

Past research has identified two key influences on a person’s propensity to

associate a particular brand with a particular attribute. The first is usage of the
brand, which impacts the likelihood of a brand to be associated with (almost) any
attribute. Customers are about three times more likely to mention a brand they
use than a brand they don’t use. Thus, brands that have more users
systematically gain more responses than brands that have fewer users. The
slight exception to this pattern is for highly descriptive attributes, which describe
functional aspects of the brand. Here, non-users are also highly likely to mention
a brand; however, brand users will still have a higher propensity. Changes in a
brand’s usage levels – for example, due to sampling changes, a change in shelf
space or distribution – will thus lead to complementary changes in brand
response levels, regardless of any advertising activity. There needs to be control
for this during advertising effectiveness analysis, to ensure that the impact of
advertising is isolated and correctly attributed.

The second influence is the degree to which the attribute defines the category,
or its prototypicality. The more often an attribute is mentioned across all brands,
the more prototypical it is considered to be. For example, the attribute of ‘quick
service’ would be more prototypical in the fast-food market than, say, ‘healthy’.
Empirically, all brands would gain more responses for ‘quick service’ than they
would for ‘healthy’. It would be expected that prototypicality levels would change
over time, as particular attributes become ‘standard’ in an industry. For
example, ‘has low carbohydrates’ in a food market would have gained only a few
responses for any food brand three years ago. Now, however, the attribute would
gain more responses across all brands as consumers have become more aware
of this feature within the food market, and marketers focus on this attribute in
their communications and packaging. Likewise, prototypicality levels can
decrease as attributes become less relevant. For example, in the banking
industry, it would be expected that the prototypicality levels of ‘having
convenient branches’ would have declined as other non-branch methods of doing
banking have increased.

Romaniuk and Sharp (2000) demonstrated a technique whereby an expected

response level for each brand on each attribute can be established, by drawing
on these two patterns of usage and prototypicality, and utilising a chi-squared-
type calculation. This expected value can then be used to identify deviations,
which can highlight each brand’s strengths or weakness, relative to competitors.
Given that the purpose of advertising is to create these strengths, or reduce
these weaknesses, we suggest that this technique can be used to identify the
impact of advertising, by controlling for changes that are due to variations in
usage or prototypicality levels.