Cravens

What one word or phrase comes to mind when thinking about brand x?

Often used in qualitative interviews this question forms the premise for ‘Brand Tags’ a fascinating online research project put together by Nohan Brier.

Prompted by a brand logo, users type in the first word or phrase that comes to mind and see how their response combines with others to form a ‘brand tag cloud.’

The more people that type a specific word or phrase the more prominent it appears.

The results make fascinating reading.

Usual suspect ‘Super Brands’ like; Apple, Amazon and Guinness generate associations that are both positive and clearly representative of their product or service propositions.

Other brands are not so fortunate.

Taking the Olympic brand as an example Beijing 2008 is dominated by comments on; Tibet, boycott, human rights.’ Not good news for sponsors and no doubt interesting feedback to media buyers currently being sold high cost packages to place their clients in Olympic coverage.

London 2012 still suffers from the controversy of; ‘ugly logo’ and ‘waste of money.’

Comparing competitive brands is also interesting.

Whilst Adidas and Nike are both clearly ‘sport.’ Adidas seems to avoid the negative views of ‘sweatshop and child labour’ that feature strongly in Nike’s ‘Brand Cloud.’

Although ‘Brand Tags’ doesn’t pretend to be a piece of statistically valid research it offers a fascinating and immediate insight into how brands sit in people’s minds.