Brand Research Specialists

Ci is passionate about branding research. We fuse brand theory with the commercial reality of building and delivering a successful brand strategy. We help clients build brand values and promises, which resonate, are distinctive, have longevity and can be consistently delivered across stakeholder groups.

We also work with clients to monitor and track brand perceptions. We work closely with brand alignment specialists Brand Vista to deliver the Brand Alignment Monitor (BAM). This is an easily implemented brand measurement tool that allows several leading brands to understand how they perform against a unique positioning and critical success factors.

Brands have personalities and characteristics, which are continually evolving within people’s minds. A strong brand promise is built on emotional as well as rational values, which is why branding research must go beyond the rational (e.g. product, service and price) to get at the intangibles, the irrationals, and the downright core emotions.

That is one of the main reasons why branding research is such a particularly interesting area of work, requiring specific expertise in qualitative research techniques to elicit deep-seated views to inform understanding and decision making. Typically our work in this area has been in helping clients to evaluate positioning, inform decision making on how to take a brand forward, and enable the development of a more consistent and coherent branding and communications strategy. Typical examples of the work we have undertaken in this area include:

• “BAM” research to understand how aligned the brands of the UK’s major cities are in relation to their positioning statements
• Research to inform the decision on which brand to use in England for an SME business banking division following the merger of two major industry players.
• A study on behalf of a leading UK manufacturer and supplier of safety products and equipment to assess the position of its corporate and on-line brand in the marketplace, evaluate the perceptions of their newly acquired competitor, and assess potential reactions to a name change so that the client did not have to support three separate brands.
• Brand concept and campaign evaluation work for a regional Police Force to inform the development of a consistent brand strategy, values and positioning and test concepts for future campaigns.

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