Brand Awareness Is a Deceptive Metric

Brand awareness is the easiest way for marketers to claim they’re measuring the progress of a brand.

But brand awareness doesn’t measure a brand. It only measures if people have heard of your company.

A brand is how people think and feel about your company in a way that affects their preference for a company. It only exists in the minds of your customers.

And people can hear about your company—they can be aware of it—without having any opinions or feelings toward it.

When I scroll through a food delivery app, I see hundreds of restaurants I’m aware of. But I have no opinion on them.

I recognize their name. But I don’t click to order.

I couldn’t even tell you everything they sell.

I’m aware of their business. But I have no opinions on them.

I don’t consider them. And I don’t prefer them.

These are businesses with high awareness. But they have weak or nonexistent brands.

Part of the issue is that companies assume they all have a brand by default.

But customers don’t care about most things. They don’t pay attention to your company in the way you do. So, just because you perceive a brand doesn’t mean a customer thinks one exists.

You may just be a name they recognize.

Awareness of your company is necessary before people can form attitudes and opinions toward you. But just because they are aware doesn’t mean they have those opinions about you yet.

And without those opinions, you can’t affect their preference for you.

And if you aren’t affecting preference, you aren’t affecting the brand.

So, instead of thinking of awareness as a brand metric, think of it as a precursor. Think of it as a way to determine how many people you have the potential to influence.

Awareness gets your foot in the door so you can make an impression.

Most Money Spent on Branding Is Wasted

According to Havas’s Meaningful Brands Study, 75% of brands could disappear, and nobody would care.

Customers would move on. They'd find someone else. Their lives wouldn't have the slightest interruption.

Most brands are replaceable.

That is a big problem. But it isn’t a surprising problem.

When brands treat awareness as a measure of a brand’s success, they ignore the customer attitudes that actually shape the brand.

Havas’s number indicates that most businesses have very weak brands.

They aren’t doing things that contribute to improving customer preference and building a brand.

They’re stuck in a pure awareness stage.

Customers know they exist. But they don’t feel the brands do anything meaningful for them.

They don’t leave an impression.

This is disturbing considering how much is spent on brand building that mainly produces commodities by another name.

What a brand stands for doesn't have to be big: Heinz ketchup stands for making your food consistently delicious.

But it has to consistently and clearly stand for something relevant to your customers: Heinz has invested millions in research to develop ketchup that is chemically more delicious than other brands for a large segment of customers.

Even restaurants that produce everything in-house often still use Heinz ketchup. They know they can't equal the taste.

To be one of the 25% of brands that matter to customers, you must stand for something relevant to your customers. And you must constantly reinforce that stance.

You can’t just become more aware.

Instead, you must constantly try to increase their preference for your brand relative to your competitors.

Only when you consistently stand for something relevant to your customers will they care if you disappear.

Otherwise, you're just a replaceable commodity.

Not a brand.

How To Ensure Your Ads Build Your Brand

If customers don't remember an ad, it failed.

Forgotten ads don't influence decision-making. They fade from memory. And they get replaced by more memorable products.

Forgetting leads to advertising failure.

But one tactic can increase any ad's likelihood of being remembered. It doesn't come from advertising. It comes from one of the greatest theater directors, Peter Brook.

It's called The Acid Test.

Brook spent his life examining how to make an audience care about and understand the essence of the play. And remember it for the rest of their lives.

In his seminal work The Empty Space, Peter Brook introduces the concept of The Acid Test, a simple criterion for determining the difference between a lousy theatre production and a great one.

Here it is: does the theater production contain a single moment that, if recalled, a spectator can remember what the play was about years after the show ends?

That's it.

But, think about how powerful of a test it is: Years after seeing a show, the only thing left is a memory; you won't remember all the details. But if there's one moment burned into your mind that captures the essence of the play, it was able to connect with you on a meaningful level.

In movies, these are the moments we often see in highlight reels, moments that bring back memories and make us want to recapture the way they made us feel: Garland's "There's No Place Like Home" at the end of The Wizard of Oz, Brando's "I Could've Been A Contender" speech in On The Waterfront, or Bogart sending away Bergman at the airport in Casablanca.

Great ads aren't any different.

People are unlikely to remember more than one thing in an ad.

Yet, many ads try to convey multiple or vague messages.

There isn’t a single thing to remember.

Yet, how many great ads have a memorable image that captures the essence of the ad and the brand? I'd bet every one of them.

How many bad ads don't have an image that captures the essence of the ad and the brand? I'd bet every one of them again.

Apple's 1984 ad has it: the image of the runner entering the crowd of drones says everything.

Bernbach's "Think Small" ad for the Volkswagen Beetle captures both elements too: the image and the two-word phrase say it all (the text adds to the story, but the essence is there in the image).

Or, look at George Lois's Esquire covers: Andy Warhol sinking in a Campbell's soup can. Or, Muhammad Ali, hands tied behind his back, pierced by a barrage of arrows: clear images that sell the cover story by conveying the core idea in one clear picture.

All these shows, ads, and covers have one thing in common: they're created by people who fully understand who their audiences are and what they're offering to their audiences.

Great ads can't be built without this understanding. And without that understanding your ads won't be memorable.

So, next time you evaluate an ad, ask, "Does it pass the acid test?"

Then, ask if the impression reflects a key element of your brand.

A clear takeaway, consistently reinforced, builds a strong brand.

P.S. Want to transform your brand into the preferred choice? Reply to this email and I’ll set up a free 30-minute brand audit to help turn you into one of the 25% of brands that actually matter to their customers.