Brand awareness

In Market Research Solutions by Bashir Muheeb

PEST Analysis is an interesting relationship between Brand awareness and external factors that could infringe on making the consumer’s awareness of a particular brand.

Marketing and production generally have moved through a different phase from the era where consumers were considered to be at the tail end of the production and marketing process. We are in the era of active consumers who want to be carried along from the design stage down to the distribution.

Little wonder the American Marketing Association stressed “communication” to be a major component of the marketing process. This communication involves the producers and consumers as players in marketing, inferring that information is exchanged between both parties to maintain a good relationship that ultimately brings about an exchange of value.

Brand awareness is communicating product characteristics to target prospective consumers in a manner that can positively affect their decision concerning the product. Brand awareness can take different forms like Advertisement, Brand endorsement, Partnership, and sponsorship of events and programs among others. In a report published by statista.com, Procter& Gamble, a big player in the Consumer goods industry worldwide spent about 7.32 billion US dollars on advertisement. This report reveals that the subject matter is a major thought in the heart of organizations who are serious about retaining and expanding their market share for a product and cannot afford to slow down their reach globally.

Competition among different organizations offering similar products and services has made brand awareness key in business, in addition to adopting an appealing approach to get the attention and audience of customers and to better position themselves amongst several competitors. This generates a larger customer base that could elevate an organization’s sales; as it does not only expand an organization’s revenue but also its market share. An organization’s identity can be described as its “BRAND”. A brand is an umbrella name that distinguishes one entity from many others. It is about showcasing how one is different among many options.

Brand awareness is a customer’s ability to recall or recognize a product. This establishes the image that speaks widely about the organization within their market. To capture the degree of brand awareness, different methods can be explored either independently or combined; top-of-mind, brand recognition, brand recall, logo, advert, product, and tagline. Effective testing and understanding of these methods can better inform an organization on how to position themselves in the market space. These methods can sustain a brand when they are carefully and efficiently executed.

A larger number of consumers would develop a preference for a product when it is constantly being heard or seen boldly displayed on a popular route (accessed by targets) or billboard. This technique conveniently shapes and registers brands in the conscious and subconscious minds of potential consumers and can significantly affect decision-making.  Without a doubt, if all these measures are adequately taken and implemented, it would promote and create wide awareness for the product, service and the brand at large.

Having used these features correctly does not guarantee the product’s success without considerably examining other external forces which could hinder the product’s awareness. Such factors are abbreviated as “PEST or PESTLE” which stands for Political, Economic, Social-cultural, Technology, Legal, and Environmental. These factors could impede the success of brand awareness if they are not properly controlled.

PEST is a framework of macro-environmental factors responsible for carrying out and investigating other external factors that could negatively affect brand awareness. These aforementioned factors could independently or singlehandedly hinder brand awareness. PESTLE analysis allows researchers as well as companies to gain enough marketing insight on how to sustain their market share. For instance, the political factor can be explained through government intervention in the market. The government could decide to implement some policies which would constraint advertising agencies and invariably determine the kinds of product or brand that will be allowed to go into the market.

Social-cultural factor is another key PEST factor that could impede brand awareness. This is because most societies embrace new ideas that could enhance their lives while also respecting their cultural doctrines.

In conclusion, PEST analysis is advised to be carefully incorporated into the marketing communication strategies, this is because it is somewhat an unidentified factor that could silently yield productive, desirable, and valuable insights to having better decision-making strategies. 

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