How to build a brand : Evoking the right emotions in audience perception

Abstract: In order to be competitive in the marketplace, all company’s need to have a well-established and thought-out brand. It is difficult to create a brand that conveys the right feeling and establishes a connection with its target group. The process consists of many steps and subjective opinions are difficult to measure. This study aims to determine how a branding process can be conceptualized and performed, in order to ensure a connection with its target audience, as well as how the results objectively can be measured. In this context, a branding process is defined as the proceedings of a series of well-defined activities used to develop a value system, and communication framework for a business. To investigate how a brand can be created, and measure its impact on the target audience, a literature review and semi-structured interviews were held with experts within the field. Based on these findings, a brand identity and strategy was developed through a number of workshop exercises, held with the founders of a start-up company named Kurr. A brand identity was established, and a new design of the company website was created. An online survey containing a desirability test was sent out to people within and outside the company’s target audience to measure the response of the website and brand. During the desirability test, the respondents got to view a prototype of the company website and then select 3 - 5 words from a list of 20 that best described their initial emotions of the brand. The results showed that the top five words chosen by the target audience matched with the five intended emotions picked for the brand. These findings reinforce previous research that highlights the importance of a well-thought- out brand strategy and identity. The results suggests that brand archetypes can be effective to use when developing a new brand. Further, the research shows that Microsoft desirability test can be used to provide data on how a brand is perceived by its audience.