5 Ways to Build a Positive Brand Association [+ Examples]

Whoever said “All advertising is good advertising“lied.

The only truth is that bad advertising can draw attention to your brand and expand your reach.

However, the first impression (and any impression after it) can last.

So if your brand is associated with negative traits and concepts, it can be difficult to change that perception.

Learn what makes a brand association and how to build a positive one.

Various factors influence brand association, including:

• Brand identity and messaging
• Brand values ​​such as logo and colors
• Customer experience
• Product and service quality
• Word of mouth
• call
• display
• Social media presence

You will find that most of these factors are controlled by the brand itself, which is great news. This means brands play a key role in consumer perception.

It also means that you have the potential to change the association with your brand if it isn’t particularly positive.

Examples of brand associations

Here are some examples of brand associations.

Charmin – bears, soft toilet paper

Google – Search, answers, information

Wikipedia – Information, biography

Anima iris – Luxury, black excellence

Canva – Graphic design, simple, templates

Rhum Barbancourt – Quality, Haiti, classic

As you can see, most associations are a mix of services or products that the company may offer along with certain features and concepts. The hope is that the associations with your brand are both true and positive.

If you find it doesn’t, you may need to do some consumer research and work on creating stronger messaging for your brand.

Brand Association Card

A brand association card is a visual representation of the attributes and concepts associated with your brand. You can also use it to identify threats and opportunities, and how you are doing against competitors.

Image source

With a brand association card, you can quickly identify the words that are associated with your brands and that are closest based on their proximity to the inner circle.

For example, the above picture shows Nike in the middle. It shows that the two biggest associations with the brand are: “Adidas”, a competitor, and “shoes”.

You then have the term “comfortable” which is more closely associated with Nike than the word “durable”.

This can be a good start to determining where your brand currently stands in the eyes of consumers and making changes to your branding and marketing strategy.

If Nike wants consumers to see it as a long-lasting brand, rather than a brand that makes comfortable clothes and shoes, this information can be used to create messages about the concept along with targeted campaigns.

If it’s unclear what consumers associate with your brand, conduct a survey.

First of all, you need a pool of respondents who are familiar with your brand. This can include consumers at any stage of the buyer’s journey from a lead to a customer.

Then ask your respondents to include the terms they associate with your brand. You can collect these answers through open-ended questions as well as list questions. You can then ask your respondents to rank the terms based on proximity to your brand.

Alternatively, if you already have a list of positive, neutral, and negative attributes for your brand, you can use this to build your survey questions and engage your competitors.

Once you’ve collected, cleaned up, and analyzed your data, you can create a brand association map to visually represent your associations.

1. Have a robust branding strategy.

Your branding strategy is an important pillar in building a positive brand association.

For starters, you want to have a strong brand identity. This means that you know your mission, values, personality, unique brand positioning and voice. If there isn’t much clarity about this, you can leave consumers to make their own guesses which may not be correct or favorable.

Your brand identity then affects your brand values, namely your logo and brand colors, which tell a story about your brand.

Then you have your messages that should highlight the value you offer, communicate the benefits of your brand, and differentiate you from your competitors.

In addition, you have your brand voice that you use to communicate with your audience and make the impression you make. This is one of the more specific factors that will affect your brand association.

When your brand voice is friendly, warm, and young, it leads to concepts, feelings, and traits that your audience will associate with your company.

2. Review all customer touchpoints.

Think about how you will interact with your target audience.

Online this includes social media, your website, email, chat, and even business review websites.

How you maintain your community can play a huge role in how they see you. The same goes for the way you approach dissatisfied customers, who raise their concerns on social media, or who ask questions.

Offline, this looks like phone calls, face-to-face meetings, and in-store interactions.

Make sure you have adequate training on customer interactions to ensure that your brand is doing its best.

The better your customer service and relationship management, the better your reputation will be – this then leads to positive brand associations.

3. Look at your partnerships.

The brands and influencers you work with also reflect your brand.

Today’s consumers expect brands to be more vocal on social and political issues. This also means being vocal when employees or external partners display behaviors that are considered socially unacceptable.

Because of this, brands often break up with celebrities and well-known personalities with whom they have run ongoing marketing campaigns.

So be selective about who you work with.

4. Identify threats to your brand.

After you’ve strengthened your branding strategy, there is still a lot to do.

You need to be proactive in identifying and neutralizing threats to your brand. This can be done on both a small and a large scale.

On a small scale, this can seem like responding to a negative review on Yelp. To a large extent, this can respond to reports of discrimination in your company.

Social monitoring and listening will help keep track of the ball and make sure you have a plan if a threat to your brand arises.

5. Have a crisis management plan.

You have identified a threat to your brand. What now?

If the threat is major, you will likely need to refer to your crisis management plan.

When a crisis happens, every minute counts. You want to control the narrative to make sure your brand isn’t badly damaged and doesn’t face long-term setbacks.

With that in mind, create a plan early on with actionable steps to fix the issues, fix them quickly, and fix relationships.

Building a positive brand association is a never-ending process as your business grows and evolves. The good news is that you are the biggest influencer of your brand association.