F/Brand – Brand Environment Mapping

Every marketing manager is aware of the investment required to create and sustain a brand. He receives ongoing reports from the field and knows the seasonal sales graph by heart. He also has a fairly good picture of competitors' activities. The most challenging area to evaluate is the brand's position in the consumer's consciousness. Dollar for dollar, how much influence does the ad campaign actually have?

Many research tools – surveys, questionnaires, discussion groups and interviews – attempt to answer this question. Their common problem is that they only gather the answers to questions presented to the consumer. What about all the items not represented in the questionnaire?

Discovering the consumer's real opinions requires a different approach: listening quietly to what people are saying about the brand in their natural environment. Only there do they freely express their thoughts and feelings.

Buzzilla's mapping research locates discussions about the brand and its competitors from thousands of sites, forums and blogs. It then analyzes the conversation levels for every brand, the elements generating positive and negative conversation about them, and the main discussion topics about the category in general. Our research makes it possible to map the opportunities and threats emerging from the brand conversation, identify unfulfilled needs, and gain new understanding and operational conclusions.

Objective:
 To map consumer perceptions about the brand in its competitive environment.

Brand Environment Mapping research includes:

  • Display of conversation volume about the brand vs. competitors in the category, during a defined period
  • Quantitative and qualitative analysis of online opinions regarding the brand and its competitors
  • Segmentation of conversation topics about the brand and its competitive environment
  • Presentation of the brand's positioning in the competitive arena, based on consumer perceptions
  • Segmentation of conversation volume by arenas of activity (forums, blogs, social networks, articles)
  • Characterization of active groups in each arena, to better understand the consumer and identify unfulfilled needs and opportunities
  • Description of the nature of the conversation, to characterize activities that stimulate web discussion
  • Presentation of operational conclusions and insights for implementation, including identification of threats and opportunities