Brand Core · Brand Perception · Module
Measuring perception
How what people think is actually established — with the method’s limits recorded alongside the result, because every method here has serious ones.
The idea
How it works
Every method used here is biased in a known direction. Surveys collect considered answers to questions people had not thought about; social sentiment collects the views of the small minority who post; interviews collect what people will say to a stranger. Using one method is choosing one bias.
The instrument has to hold still. Perception moves slowly, which means the trend is the point — and a reworded question or a changed sample makes the trend measure the instrument instead.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Use at least two methods
One quantitative for the trend and one qualitative for what the trend means. Neither answers the other’s question.
- 02
Ask openly before asking on scales
A scale measures what you already suspected. Open questions are where the surprises are.
- 03
Hold the instrument still between waves
Wording, sample and timing all fixed. Improving the survey destroys the comparison.
- 04
Record who was not asked
Non-customers and lapsed customers are the groups most often missing and most often the ones with the finding.
One level in
The components of measuring perception
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
Perception moves slowly, so the trend is the point — and improving the survey destroys the trend.
The other modules in brand perception
The identity–image gap
The distance between what the organisation intended and what arrived — and which of the two is wrong, because both answers occur.
LearnSegment differences
How perception varies between customers, non-customers, employees and candidates — and which of those differences matters for what the organisation is trying to do.
LearnShifting perception
What it takes to change a belief that is wrong or outdated: how long, on what evidence, and why saying it differently is rarely enough.
Learn