What Is Brand Awareness? Definition, Benefits, and Examples

Brand awareness increases your company’s visibility and recognition. But what is brand awareness exactly, and how can you create a strategy to increase yours? A well-crafted brand can help potential customers learn what makes your business unique while also building trust with existing customers.

In this post, we’ll explore the fundamentals of branding and how to expand brand awareness among customers.

Key Takeaways

• Brand awareness measures how well consumers recognize and recall your brand. This is determined by two factors: brand recognition and brand recall.
• Benefits of building brand awareness include increased brand equity, improved customer association, and increased customer trust.
• Struggles with increasing brand awareness include difficulty in standing out in a crowded market, not easy to track ROI, and difficulty staying up to date with the latest trends and platforms.
• Design marketing strategies to build brand awareness by creating a catchy slogan and an identifiable brand voice, launching new brand projects, and hosting engaging events, such as social media contests and sponsorship.

What Does Brand Awareness Mean?

What is brand awareness? It’s the extent that a target audience (existing and new consumers) can recall and recognize a brand’s products or services. Whether through a recognizable brand voice, logo, or tagline, brand awareness can boost credibility and sales. For example, using a signature color consistently can increase brand recognition by 80%. 

It’s also worth noting that the success of a product launch or marketing campaign can be positively or negatively affected by whether or not your company has brand awareness. Two things you should pay close attention to when creating brand awareness are brand recall and brand recognition. They determine whether or not your brand awareness efforts pay off in the form of more trust and customers. 

Brand Recognition

Brand recognition is an aspect of brand awareness that refers to the extent to which a target audience can identify a brand based on its specific attributes. These brand awareness attributes include your logo, brand voice, marketing campaign, colors, audio cues like jingles, tagline, product packaging, etc. And to achieve brand recognition with existing and new consumers alike, you would need to expand your brand awareness reach while consistently and frequently sharing your brand message.

For example, whenever you attend sporting events and see that signature swoosh symbol, you probably associate it with Nike due to brand recognition. It doesn’t matter where you are or what color the symbol is; your brain is geared that way because you have strong brand awareness of the brand.

Brand Recall

Another aspect of building brand awareness is enhancing brand recall. This is how likely a consumer is to remember a brand and its products or services. 

There are two types of brand recall: 

• Aided: When a consumer is prompted or reminded of a brand name through some form of advertisement, like television commercials or printed ads. This type of recall measures how effective the advertisement was at influencing customers to remember the product after seeing it. 
• Unaided: When customers spontaneously remember a specific brand name without being prompted by any kind of external stimulus. This type of brand recall measures how well-known and recognizable a company and its products are in the minds of potential customers. 

For example, if you are given a list of social media company logos to choose from, you would probably identify the white “f” against the blue background as Facebook because of strong aided recall. 

Benefits of Increasing Brand Awareness

Some advantages that come with creating brand awareness include the following: 

Positive Brand Equity

Brand equity is the value a company gets from being a recognizable name. It’s based on how consumers perceive its products or services due to strong brand awareness, which can have a positive impact on how much consumers are willing to pay. Typically, the more valuable a brand is in the minds of consumers, the more revenue a company can generate from the sale of its products or services.

For example, Apple Inc., the world’s most valuable brand, can charge more for its phones and computers than other brands due to its high brand equity and trust. Their target audience will line up as soon as the company launches new products, even though the price point is much higher than some.

More Web Traffic 

One of the biggest benefits of achieving strong brand awareness is increased traffic to your website. When people know who you are, they’re more likely to visit your site and learn about your products or services. This means that, with a well-executed brand strategy in place, you will be able to attract more visitors who could potentially turn into customers. 

Not only will building your brand help you get more visitors, but it will also help improve your visibility online. People tend to trust brands they recognize because they associate them with quality and reliability. And when people trust you, they’re more likely to share your content on social media or recommend you to their friends, which leads to increased visibility for your business. 

Increased Customer Trust

When people become familiar with your brand, they’re much more likely to become loyal, repeat customers. Building relationships with customers is key to creating long-term success for any business. By investing in building a strong brand presence, you can create an emotional connection with potential customers that leads to lasting loyalty.  

Also, potential customers want brands to be transparent and authentic before they’ll trust them. By taking brand trust improvement actions, such as sharing how orders are fulfilled, creating informative and entertaining branded content, stating where you source raw materials, and sharing how employees operate daily, you raise brand awareness.

This helps your target audience trust you, inspiring them to support your company by purchasing from you.

Struggles of Increasing Brand Awareness

Increasing brand awareness is advantageous in many ways. But brand building is not without its challenges.

Hard to Measure ROI

When it comes to marketing efforts like traditional advertising and digital campaigns, measuring return on investment (ROI) can be pretty straightforward. However, it can be tough to measure brand awareness in terms of ROI because there are so many variables at play.

It’s hard to track exactly how much money you make from increased brand recognition, since it often leads to long-term customer loyalty rather than an immediate boost in sales. However, measuring brand awareness can be done by tracking increased web traffic, brand mentions, branded search volume, and leads.

Expensive Marketing Campaigns

Finally, raising brand awareness can be expensive. Between hiring employees who specialize in marketing and paying for advertising on multiple platforms, increasing your profile can get expensive quickly. That being said, there are ways to maximize your spending by focusing on cost-effective tactics like a micro-influencer marketing strategy and content optimization.

Difficulty to Stand Out in a Crowded Market

In today’s crowded market space, it can be difficult for brands to stand out from the competition. With thousands of websites and companies vying for attention online, it’s hard to make an impression and capture people’s attention — especially if your competitors have bigger budgets and more resources than you do. This means that creating effective campaigns that draw attention and foster loyalty can be difficult without the right marketing strategies in place. 

How to Build Brand Awareness

The most well-known brands did not become that way overnight — they invested years of hard work and money into becoming a household name. While most companies will never have that kind of recognition (or budget), there are some things you can do to spread the word about your business on a smaller scale. Try some of the proven tactics below to help improve brand awareness.

Create a Catchy Slogan

Did you know that 47% of consumers think a business’s slogan is important or somewhat important when deciding to make a purchase? It’s for this reason that you should create a short, catchy slogan for your business. That short phrase representing your brand products or company may not seem like much, but when done right, it can pack a punch. Excellent examples include: KFC’s “finger-lickin’ good,” or De Beer’s “A diamond is forever.”

An effective marketing slogan should be:

• Short
• Timeless
• Unique
• Catchy
• Easy to understand
• Memorable
• Relevant to your target audience

How well you execute your marketing slogan influences brand recall and recognition. So, choose your catchphrase wisely. You’ll also want to craft a distinctive brand voice for your company that you use across marketing and social channels. Dollar Shave Club, Bark Box, and AppSumo are great examples of recognizable brand voices.

Launch New Brand Projects

Microsites give you an opportunity to launch a new product or service or reach a different demographic. Think of microsites as websites independent from your primary domain that you can use to enhance interactions and improve brand awareness.

For example, in 2006, OfficeMax created Elf Yourself, an interactive microsite that enabled target consumers to upload their faces so they could star as dancing elves on ecards. The new users could then share the videos or save them as mini-films.

It became one of the most famous brand awareness campaign ideas to ever be implemented, with some famous broadcasters taking part in the creation of their own videos, helping increase the microsite’s popularity and improving OfficeMax’s brand awareness. And since 2006, at least 2 billion elves have been created.

Host Engaging Events

As part of your brand awareness marketing strategies, you can host engaging events to increase brand awareness. Such events can take place virtually and in person. For example, you could hold webinars, live classes to show how to use a product or create something relevant to your business, or hold in-person shopping events.

In addition, you could opt for sponsoring events online or offline to engage those who share similar social values to introduce your products or services to new audiences. For example, you can host an art exhibit, feature unique artists in the community, and help elevate their profile through art auctions, raising brand awareness for your art gallery in return.

Collaborate With Relevant Partners

You don’t have to increase brand awareness by yourself. You can partner with other businesses with interests similar to yours. By doing so, you would reduce the cost of marketing while easing your marketing efforts, and increasing your marketing reach since you will appeal to your combined target audiences. An example of a co-branding partnership that worked involved BMW, a luxury car brand, and Luis Vuitton, a luxury fashion design house.

When BMW launched its first hybrid BMW i8 vehicle model, Louis Vuitton tailor-made a four-piece carbon fiber luggage set (a garment bag, business case, and two different weekender bags) that was a perfect fit for the vehicle’s rear parcel shelf.

Sponsor Influencers in Your Target Market

Not all influencers who create awareness of brands via social media posts fit the typical celebrity mold. Some are YouTubers, TikTok content creators, and Instagram influencers who can participate in your brand-building efforts via referral programs.

However, these people hold significant sway over the opinions of those within your target audience. So, when they recommend a product or service, your business will experience increased brand awareness, engagement, and sales. Therefore, it pays to identify the right influencer for your target audience and partner with them to increase your brand awareness.

Take Advantage of Public Relations Efforts

You should take steps to portray a positive brand image regularly via public relations. You can do that in various ways:

• Writing press releases to promote a product launch or company activity
• Holding news conferences when you have something to promote
• Taking part in charitable activities in the community
• Hiring a copywriter for ads

What Makes for a Great Brand Awareness Campaign?

Not all brand awareness campaigns are created equal. Here’s how to make yours a success.

• Communication: The channels you choose to communicate through, what message you share, and the type of content you use matters. To communicate successfully, you should choose content that appeals to your target demographics using platforms where they frequently hang out.
• Clarity: Is your message clear, or does it leave room for confusion? People should understand what your brand messaging is all about without getting confused. And your message should uniquely identify your brand even if a similar brand exists.
• Consistency: When improving brand awareness, you must communicate your brand message using a similar brand voice across all channels, even if you target different demographics.

Examples of Companies That Have Mastered Brand Awareness

Below are examples of companies that have mastered brand awareness.

Spotify

Spotify is one of the most recognizable brands. Its brand awareness level currently stands at an impressive 91%. One way the company achieved such numbers is through the “Spotify Wrapped” campaign. The company used personalized data to increase brand engagement, improve the sense of community, and encourage users to share the company’s insights into their preferences.

Red Bull

Red Bull is consistent when marketing its brands, regardless of the channels it uses, including product packaging. At the foundation of that message is the fact that it helps you to achieve your goals, which is consistently expressed through its catchy slogan, “Red Bull gives you wings.” Also, the company uses influencer marketing as part of its business model to help consumers recognize its brand. The latter increases brand awareness through its sponsorship of extreme sports and athletes.

Apple

Apple has achieved brand awareness with a sleek design and look, including the bitten apple logo. It doesn’t matter which color you view the logo in or on which product, your brain automatically associates it with the brand. In addition to its strong brand awareness campaigns, it has a premium pricing strategy that makes people associate the brand with luxury and quality. And the company has also mastered the art of product launches and enhancing customer satisfaction. Everything is tailored for the geographical region where the products or services are sold in.

Wrapping Up

So what is brand awareness? As you can see, brand awareness is a powerful tool that helps you increase your visibility and build customer trust. Not only will it boost recognition amongst potential customers, but it will also help to enhance loyalty among the ones you already have. A focus on increasing brand awareness will help you cultivate relationships with customers based on shared values, something that is invaluable in today’s highly competitive market.

Most importantly, when implemented correctly, it will give your business an edge, as potential customers are more likely to remember your name when they need your services or products in the future. With a distinctive brand voice and tagline, consistent brand colors, fonts, and design, as well as marketing campaigns, you can spread awareness for your brand, no matter how big or small.