Brand awareness relates to how aware people are about a brand, from its logo, ads, slogan or simply its market presence. Global icons like Nike have very high awareness, while a local business will likely have good brand awareness only in the immediate community or niche target audience. Brand awareness is not easily measurable, because it is a qualitative and subjective notion. However, with the increase in sophistication of online measurement tools, it is possible to track certain markers of online consumer behavior, measure them and compare them to pre-set KPIs to determine the brand awareness level.
Aided vs unaided brand awareness
There are two ways to approach brand awareness, aided and unaided. Aided brand awareness is a measure of how well a consumer recognizes a brand when prompted by the name or other branding feature. Unaided brand awareness denotes brand awareness with no prompting. For example, if a consumer is asked to name a soft drink brand they love and they respond “Coke”, this is an example of unaided brand awareness measurement. On the contrary, if the consumer is asked directly what they think about Coke, this is an example of aided brand awareness, as they are being prompted with the brand name.
When there is high unaided brand awareness, this is the sign that the brand is strong and highly recognized in the market.