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Impact of Brand Design on Consumer Perception and Decision Making
Dipanjan Bhowmick1
MBA, Finance & Marketing
Institute of Engineering & Management, Kolkata, India
bhowmick.dipanjan34@gmail.com
Abstract
The research focuses on understanding the purpose of branding and ways to do it effectively to improve
influence over the consumer. The perception built in the consumer’s mind triggers decision-making from the
consumer's end. The study shows the brand’s strength that has been built by a company through its branding
strategy and the consumers over which the brand has the control to influence based on different categories they
belong to. This will help a company assess and improve its branding and influence consumer perception and
decision-making. The study provides ideal outcomes which will suit the branding environment the best and
provide the maximum output that is suitable and manageable for the company in the long run. The research also
draws inference backed by data collected through surveys that price is influenced by brand design.
Keywords: Branding, Decision Making, Consumer Perception, Pricing, Visual Design
Introduction
To understand what branding is first we need to understand what brand is not, because there is a general
misconception of what a brand is. A brand is not the logo.
A logo is a very useful tool for building the identity of a business but it is not branding. It can be said to be
a symbol that represents the brand.
A brand is not a product. However, a product is something that is being branded.
A brand is not a promise.
Brand is not an impression that a company makes on an audience.
A brand is a result. As said by Marty Neumeier, “A brand is a customers gut feeling about a product, service or
company.” It is something that ends up in the minds of the people. Business promotions of any kind are
technically raw material that is thrown at the people and people make something out if it, that is a brand. Hence,
a brand Is something the customers create for themselves in their minds by looking at a brand. Therefore, the
perception of a brand of the same business is going to be different in the minds of different people. So, one
company can create millions of brands since there are millions of customers or potential customers for that
company.
Brand is like a reputation. Different people will perceive it differently but as long as it is in the circle of what
the business more or less want the people to think of it and as long as it benefits the business, it business need
not worry about it.
From a designers point of view, brand cannot be created, an idea can be pitched based on a general assumption
about how people may or may not perceive a business after looking at the design language followed. Hence, the
design needs to be as close compact as possible to keep the customers mind from deviating too much from what
a business is trying to convey. Eventually, the customers will form an idea about the business just by looking at
it, which is not in control, but the objective is to keep it as uniform as possible.
Also, the stakeholders of a company affect the brand. Either they doing something for the brand or hurting the
brand. A general perception about a stakeholder of a business in the mind of people also formulate a brand in
the mind of each individual.
Background
Branding is something that has been used for decades by various businesses to create a perception in the minds
of the people, whatever that perception might be. Branding changes over time based on what is relevant in that
time period. Businesses try their level best to remain relevant in every phase, as trends in the market keep on
shifting.
The idea of businesses is to create value for their customers to provide as high utility as possible at a cost they
are willing to pay. What a business does is it creates more value than it costs them to create that value for the
customer. That is the basic equation of any business. The sales funnel as we know it in business and marketing
is heavily driven on the customer because that is where the product or service finally ends at. The components
between the business and the customer are brand and behaviour. What the brand traditionally does is add
something extra to the product or service, and this brand in turn effects the behaviour of the consumer,
essentially the decision making behavior. Brand has a value, hence it is considered and written as an intangible
asset under the asset side of a balance sheet as ‘Goodwill’. Finally, what remains in the mind of the customer is
the brand image and this brand is imaged by the customer through the design language of the brand. However,
we will be more focused on the consumer rather then the customer as it changes the whole perspective. A
customer is the buyer of a product, it is fairly static. But, a consumer is someone who may or may not buy a
product directly, but initiates the buying process, consumes the product or service, provides the feedback, and
directly or indirectly responsible for public relations, making it a dynamic process.
From the business point of view, it Is not merely focused on manufacturing or selling, it is about designing and
delivering differentiated experiences. This is done to make sure brands drive buying behaviour. Brand can be
said to be an articulation of business strategy. Brand is something that engages people. Multiple businesses may
sell the same product or service but the brand is the differentiator in all these businesses. The management’s
role here is to align the business, brand and behavior in the same line.
Certain elements help as the differentiating factor of a business in the minds of the people, even if the business
sells the same product as many other businesses. These factors include:
Visual Design:
The first thing based on which a person creates a perception about a business is from what they see. The
elements such as color, shapes, fonts, and other elements of design play an important role in setting up the
visual perception. The perception that is created defines what kind of people use the product, what is the target
market of the product, what is the positioning of the product, etc.
User Experience:
After using the products or services of a business, there are certain things that the people perceive about the
product itself and other things that come along with the product, such as how safe the packaging of the product
is, how easy is it for users to avail for a service, what are the constraints faced while purchasing a product or
service, etc. The experience of a consumer forms a perception in their mind. Good experience can help make a
product more premium, for which people are willing to pay extra.
Public Relation:
The kind of feeling, perception and idea one has about a company is heavily driven by what consumers say
about it to other potential consumers of the business. This feeling, perception and idea helps in formulating a
brand in the minds of the people. The entire process helps in maintaining a positive image through various
forms of media.
For the above differentiation, the following assumption was taken:
a) Quality of product or service between companies are more or less same or at least feels same to the consumer
or the customer is not interested in the quality.
b) The product or service being sold has actual demand in the market or has the potential to create demand.
Advertisement has not been considered as a brand creator or differentiator as it is merely a way of spreading
information about the product and existence of the company, however, the visual design used in the
advertisement is the differentiator. Hence, advertisement is not directly responsible for the formation of a brand.
Quantity of product or service being provided does not effect the brand.
Hence, we can say that value is not created by the product but in the mind of the consumers. If the consumers
thinks a business feels and looks good, provides great experience for the consumers and has received validation
for its previous users about how good the business is, and this will create an image about the brand in the minds
of the people.
Objective
The objective of this research is to study a brands influence on their consumer, understanding the variability of
brand, measuring brands strength index, consumers on which a brand has control over, consumers who are
likely to move with changes in brand strategy, understanding brand loyalty graphically, ideal outcome of
branding, impact of brand design on price of product or service.
The study is done by keeping in mind businesses and companies and their brands in general. Brand strength is
made quantifiable through the calculation of brand’s strength index. Representation of brand influence through
diagram and brand loyalty represented graphically through Gaussian distribution. Data collection was done
through survey to study the impact of brand design on price of a company’s products or services.
These methods and studies can be used by businesses to understand their influence on their consumer base and
plan accordingly. Companies can identify loyalty among customers and follow a branding strategy to make
their branding as ideal as possible. Also, improvement and benchmarking their brand design to go with their
pricing strategy can help the brand send the right message to their customers and potential customers.
Methodology
We know that brand is not consistent throughout, it is different in the minds of different people. With good
branding the perception of the consumers can be somewhat controlled but cannot be constant. Hence, we can
say that brand is a variable concept. Even if the brand of a company is somewhat on the same line, it cannot be
exactly same in the minds of all consumers. It is also possible that some people might not like the brand at all,
which might lead to a negative brand image. The extreme cases of negative branding are however not
controllable, but, the people within the span of control of the brand can be brought even closer.
Variability of Brand:
Brand is a highly variable concept. This is because it changes from one person to another, even if two people
think alike about a brand, there will always be a difference of 0.01%. This is the reason why branding is
difficult to control. Since, the brand image is left open to interpretation for the people, it generally changes its
shape quite frequently. The way someone might describe a brand might not actually match the original idea
based on which the business formed that brand. This is a good thing as well as a bad thing. It is a good thing if
it is simply liked by the people and push them into buying the product or services of the businesses and a bad
thing if it pushes them away. It is not about whether the people need that product or service or not, it is more
about whether the people what to associate themselves with that brand.
It is very difficult to measure the variability of a brand as a number cannot be put on it. It is not a measurable
component. But, it can only be understood that it is variable based on psychological factors of the consumer.
Since, brand is not measurable it is difficult to come to a conclusion as to that can be done to bring people into
the same line on which the business wants them to be in. It is also not possible to mark a brand on a scale.
Perception of a brand in the human mind is a highly complex process and neither is it binary nor linear, hence it
is impossible to put a scaling system to measure it.
Brand’s Span of Control:
Brand’s span of control is an imaginary circle within which are a group of people who more or less think alike
about a brand and this thinking goes more or less on the same line as that of how the company wants to portray
the brand as. The more the percentage of people within the brand’s span of control, the better the company is
doing in its branding. Hence, this determines the strength of the brand.
Strength Index of a Brand (SIB) = Consumers within the Brand’s Span of Control (BSCI) x 100
Consumers outside the Brand’s Span of Control (BSC0)
The consumers within this circle can be controlled by the company because they are in some way under the
influence of the company, they have a sense of understanding and trust towards the company. Hence, with any
changes in the branding of the business, they will be most influenced and grab the changes. However, the
people outside the circle will not be influenced at all unless, the new branding is something that grabs them.
This can lead to people outside the brand’s span of control to be shifted within the circle. But, it is less likely
that someone within the span will go out of it unless faced with severe issues of poor experience, which is
mostly rare. However, there is exception to this. There are extremely influenced specifically by the company
due to their ongoing brand design, slightest of change in that can lead to them absolutely disliking the business
all together. This is most applicable to people who are at the focus of the circle. We can also term them as
highly brand loyal. Fig 4.1
There also lies another area outside the entire plot. This area comprises of the people who do now know the
brand at all and hence, have not formed an opinion about the brand. This area consists of the potential
customers for the business. This area can be reached through higher promotion. Fig 4.1
The brand circle consists of three major areas, brand’s span of control or brand influence area, no brand
influence area and brand unawareness area. Within the brand’s span of control, the centre has the highest brand
influence and gradually the influence decreases towards the edge of the circle. Outside the brand’s span of
control lies the area where the brands influence does not exist, despite the fact that the people in this area know
about the brand, this area is called no brand influence area. Outside the no brand influence area lies the brand
unawareness area. This area comprises of the people who do not know about the brand’s existence and hence
are not influenced by it either. Consumers within the brand’s span of control think more or less alike with what
the brand wants to portray itself as and are hence influenced by it. The alike thinking is high at the focus and
less at the edge, decreasing gradually from the focus to the circumference. The people outside the span of
control do not think alike with how the brand portrays itself to be, they have a completely separate idea about
the brand and are hence not at all influenced by it. The people beyond this have not heard of the company hence
are unaware of its brand. Likeliness of consumers decrease in terms of thinking alike with the portrayal of the
brand because people less influenced interact less with the brand compared to the ones highly engaged with the
brand and hence understand it better. The communication between the brand and the consumer at the high
influence area is more accurate and therefore they understand what the brand is about. Since these consumers
lie in this region they are highly brand loyal or since they are brand loyal they lie in this region. Assumption:
Company’s portrayal of the brand and people’s thinking when highly alike, people will like the brand, and
company’s portrayal of the brand and people’s thinking when not alike, people will not like the brand. Fig 4.1.
Brand Loyalty expressed through Gaussian Distribution:
To understand when a company is doing the best in their branding, a Gaussian distribution can be plotted to
represent as to how the brand is perceived. It depicts the ideal condition which a company has to reach to get
the highest output from their brand. Under this situation the brand will have highest impact on the minds of the
consumer and as desired by the business.
The distribution will represent in which region of the graph the highly influenced consumers, moderately
influenced consumers and poorly influenced consumers lie. We can say that they have either high brand loyalty,
moderate brand loyalty or low brand loyalty. We are not taking into consideration whether these people can pay
for the product or service provided by the business, but if they had money they would buy from this company
based on how loyal and influenced they are. Brand loyalty is only the association a consumers attach to a brand
and does not relate to the consumers purchasing power.
The graph represents how the ideal outcome of branding should look like. If a business is able to reach
anywhere close to this outcome as shown in the graph, the company’s branding can be considered to generate
the maximum output desired by the company. The x axis represents the level of loyalty or influence of the
consumers and the y axis represents the level of consumer density. The mean (μ) divides the line into two
halves equally. This equal division is extremely important for the formation of the normal distribution. Based
on the standard deviation (σ) from the mean, the graph has been divided into certain groups which define
different levels of brand loyalty. The area on the graph has been divided into eight groups, four on each side of
the mean (μ) based on their standard deviation (σ). Right side of the mean (μ) represents increasing brand
loyalty and on the left represents decreasing brand loyalty. A1and A2represent the region with moderate brand
loyalty. This region must contain the highest density of consumers. Under an ideal situation and outcome of
branding, most consumers must be moderately brand loyal. Both areas of A1and A2are equal. B1represents the
area which is of consumers who are more loyal than the ones in area A1.. B2represents the area with consumers
less loyal than consumers who are moderately loyal to the brand. Areas of B1and B2are equal. C1represents
the area with high brand loyalty and C2represents the area with low brand loyalty. Areas of C1and C2are equal.
D1represents the area with highest brand loyalty and D2with lowest brand loyalty. Both areas of D1and D2are
equal. The area tends to gradually decrease as the curve moves away from the mean (μ). Hence, brand loyalty
and influence on majority of the consumers will be moderate. Highest brand loyal consumers and least band
loyal consumers are the minimum as they are at the far ends of the curve. The mean, median and mode of the
distribution at the same point. Fig 4.2.
Hence, we can understand from the normal distribution whether a brand is doing well or not. The closer the
brand is to the above distribution the better it is performing. Reaching this curve in their branding process,
companies can experience the highest level of growth and output from their brand.
In the above graph Fig 4.2, only the consumers within the brand’s span of control have been taken into
consideration and not the ones outside it.
If the output of branding generates a distribution as shown in Fig 4.3, it can be said that the output was
substandard or unsatisfactory. In such a face the branding of the business will not work for a very long time and
new ideas need to be implemented. Distributions representing multiple number of modes or different points of
mean, median and mode are likely to be a result of failed branding. It can be said that the company was
unsuccessful in creating the exact output for their brand. A multi-modal distribution indicates that the
company’s branding has been unbalanced and taking further decisions from here can be difficult as separate
clusters of different loyalty groups are formed. In case of skewed distribution the company is way too focused
on a single segment of consumers based on loyalty, which may lead to no further entry or leaving of consumers
of a certain existing loyalty group. Fig 4.3.
Brand Design Determines Price:
Design plays a role in determining the price of a product or service. The design language followed by a
business creates a perception in the minds of the people as to how much the price of their product or service
could be. People may also determine the quality of the product or service based on the design. However, design
does not guarantee good quality, but it certainly sends a message. People perceive good quality with good
design since it makes the company look more thoughtful and serious about what they are doing. Perception of
better quality means higher price. Hence, brand design can be used to set price of products and services by a
company. However, it needs to be kept in mind that with this perception people will gain an expectation of high
quality products which if not met can destroy brand reputation. Design is only responsible for attracting
customers and setting a certain benchmark for the brand.
People have a tendency to perceive certain colors , patterns, images, and other design elements in a specific
way when combined together. Various combinations have a different impact on the minds of the people and a
certain perception about the
brand is build which also
creates an estimated and
expected price pertaining to
their products or services.
The following survey was
done on the above topic to
draw an inference on the
study.
Two logos (A & B) were
shown to people and it was
told to them that both these
logos belong to two different
brands. Just by looking at the
logos they were asked the
following questions:
Q1) Look at the logos of two different fashion brands below. Which brand among the two do you think sells the
more expensive products?
Option 1: Brand A
Option 2: Brand B
Q2) Which brand among the two do you think makes higher quality products?
Option 1: Brand A
Option 2: Brand B
The above questions along with the reason for selecting the particular option was asked.
The total number of subjects interviewed were 100. The following is the summary of the survey:
From the above data we can interpret that 91% of people think Brand A sells more expensive products and 9%
of people think brand B sells more expensive products and 83% of people think Brand A sells higher quality
products and 17% people think Brand B sells superior quality products.
The following are a summarized version of the reasons that people gave for choosing Brand A over Brand B:
1) Brand A looks more expensive visually.
2) The logo of Brand A is very classy and attractive and gives a premium feeling.
3) The higher design quality of Brand A resembles higher quality goods.
4) Since Brand A has spent more of design, probably their products are more expensive.
Hence, we can conclude that just by looking at the logo of the two brands people created an image about them
in their minds. They perceived Brand A to be more expensive and of higher quality. Visual representation has a
great role to play in setting the standards for a business. Design language in general sets the tone for a business
and at first glance people estimate the price of products or services the business sells with respect to other
businesses in the same domain.
Since, consumers look at logos and other design elements to determine how expensive a brand is compared to
others, consumers might self qualify or self disqualify themselves based on whether they can afford the
products or services of these brands or not. Therefore, brands should not try to look more premium than they
are through design, their design should more or less reflect the price of their products, or this might prevent
them from achieving the desired consumer base they want to achieve. Hence, we can conclude that the
perception of price in the consumer’s mind is highly dependent on design language followed by the brand.
Brand A
Brand B
Q1
91
9
Q2
83
17
Conclusion
From the above study we can conclude that businesses need to design their brand in a way to gain control over
the image they are trying to portray to their consumers and target audience. It is not possible to control what
people think about a specific brand, but what can be controlled is the branding strategy and design language to
create a certain perception in the minds of the people. The perception that is created in the mind of the people
triggers decision making from the consumers end.
The following summarizes the study:
A) Brand is a variable concept as it is perceived differently by different people based on their taste and choices.
B) The Brand’s Span of Control determines the strength of the brand and who are under the influence of the
brand and by how much and who are not influenced by the brand.
C) The ideal outcome of branding has been depicted through Gaussian Distribution. It is the targeted output to
achieve the highest stability through branding strategy.
D) Brand design determines the price of products or services of a particular brand with respect to other brands
in the same domain.
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