Brand refresh projects I’ve led over the years or joined mid-flight (the beauty of freelancing) have made me reflect on the importance of informing and validating the recommendations agencies put forward and clients sign off on. Over time, research has consistently stood out as able to inform and refine brand work, help Marketing teams drive consensus, make decisions, and reassure CEOs and boards before go-live.
By research, I mean qualitative and quantitative exercises that give stakeholders a voice: speaking to client teams to understand what a brand stands for and what more they would like it to mean; speaking to audiences and getting insights into their interaction with a product or service, and how it can serve them better; and putting shortlisted design options in front of the same audiences and using their feedback to inform a final decision.
All brand work I’ve been involved in has covered internal stakeholders as part of the initial discovery/insight stage, but not all projects have been equal when it comes to bringing external audiences into the mix. Sometimes the project is more straightforward and not seen as posing any challenges; other times approaches to delivery, timelines and budgets get in the way. On other occasions, Marketing teams simply are not in the habit of researching and there can be such a thing as agencies that don’t research their work. I’ll mention the fact that speaking to external audiences is sometimes seen as irrelevant across the board – because “we know best”.
But I’d like to advocate for the inclusion of audience research in brand work; when the stakes are high, the project is highly visible internally and will introduce some level of new gen branding; or even when the goal is to deliver well and back up the work. Even if audience data is rife and finds its way in projects in many ways. Even in the age of AI.
Nothing beats researching with real audiences (i.e., real people) and leveraging insights to deliver brand well.
Brand research drives objectivity and decisions
Sitting in observation rooms over the years, listening to respondents react to design thinking, has often been eye-opening for agency and client teams alike. These sessions often allow brand work to progress more swiftly than the exclusive recommendations of agencies ever would. That’s because the findings and insights extracted directly from audiences reassure Marketing that the recommendations they are discussing answer the brief objectively. Marketing answers to the CEO and the CEO answers to the board, and no one would dare ignore a well-nuanced, margin-significant perspective expressed by end customers and validated through research.
Brand research drives nuance
Sometimes we see brand research as an offense to the work (“We know the brand; we’ve understood the brief.”). In truth, researching with end audiences can be an invaluable source of refinement, informing and allowing agencies and Marketing to finalise that same work more swiftly instead.
Brands may belong to organisations, but they live out their meaning in the hands of their audiences. Brand research bridges the gap between using folklore to inform the outcome (“We should use this route moving forward.”) to a more meaningful route. Nuggets of meaning usually surface in the dialogue between researchers and audiences – circumstances around product and service use, perception of hierarchy of information, design. When heard, distilled and used, strategy and design become more informed; brands stand the chance to come out a little more differentiated, a little more distinctive, a little more like themselves.
Brand research can drive outcome and (self-) correction, too
Brand research can be a tool for outcome (and self-) correction and the last frontier between a Marketing team and an agency releasing something into the world that damages the brand. However, you must be brave enough to let it and deal with what it’s showing you.
I have recently been involved in refreshes where brand research was key to project completion. In the former (a more owned experience), it was meaningfully deployed, confirming the strategy and design direction and reassuring Marketing and the Board on the proposed recommendation. In the latter (an inherited affair), it proved it would have been useful sadly in absentia, a stark reminder that brand work backed up by research can facilitate smooth deployment instead of launches that set the Internet on fire.
Good Brand and Marketing teams research their work. Not because they don’t know the brand, they’ve not written a good brief or steered the project well. Because they want to be sure they’re building on what they’ve got, back up and protect it.
Good agencies research their work. Not because it’s easy, not because it necessarily allows for the shortest and leanest delivery. Because sometimes even as a great agency you need to be reassured in front of clients and because, actually – delivering meaningful quant and qual these days does not cost the earth.
Good brand work is tested at the point of making and deploying – BECAUSE IT’S SMART. Because even if it goes smoothly, just in case you run into a loud opinion-giver who reckons you could have taken another route and done it differently, you can always pull up your findings and say (an undertone of ‘go away’ implied):
“Actually, we’ve researched and …”
The silence and peace of mind that then follow are priceless.
There are instances where researching won’t give you all the answers and raise the need for deeper digging and even more learning. I’ll write about that next month.
Unmistakably,
Irina.
Irina Gheorghe 
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