Brand Awareness Survey: Questions, Design and Measurement

A brand awareness survey measures how many people in your target market know your brand, how readily it comes to mind and how it compares with competitors. Done well, it is a reliable way to find out whether your marketing is building the brand. Done badly, it produces a flattering number that nobody can act on.

This article sets out to show the difference. It covers what a brand awareness survey is, the questions it should ask and in what order, how to design it so the results can be trusted, and how to turn a single survey into measurement that shows change. In doing so, it draws on Brandspeak's experience as a brand tracking agency designing awareness questions for clients in the UK and internationally.

What is a brand awareness survey?

A brand awareness survey is a structured questionnaire, answered by a representative sample of your target market, that measures whether people know your brand, whether it comes to mind without prompting, and how it compares with the competitors they could choose instead. It is quantitative research, so the answers are counted rather than interpreted.

It differs from a broader brand survey or brand perception survey, which concentrates on what people think of a brand once they know it. Awareness comes first for a simple reason: a brand that is not known cannot be considered, and a brand that is not considered cannot be chosen. A perception survey answered only by people who already know you will always paint a kinder picture than the market as a whole.

Why does a brand awareness survey matter?

Awareness is the gateway to everything else a brand needs. People buy from brands they know, and they are more willing to try something new from a familiar name than from a stranger. A brand that is not known starts every buying decision at a disadvantage, however good its product.

What happens in reality, however, is that many businesses estimate awareness from proxies such as website visits, follower counts or campaign impressions. Those measures show activity among people who already know the brand. They say nothing about the people who do not, which is precisely where growth has to come from. Only a survey of the wider market can tell you how many potential buyers have never heard of you.

What does a brand awareness survey measure?

A brand awareness survey measures three things, and asks about them in a fixed order because each is weaker evidence than the one before. Spontaneous awareness, or unaided brand awareness, records which brands people can name without help, including the first brand named, known as top-of-mind awareness. Prompted awareness, or aided brand awareness, records which brands people recognise from a list. Recognition records whether they can identify a brand from its logo, pack or advertising with the name removed.

Each of these is a distinct metric with its own strengths and limitations. Our guide to measuring brand awareness defines them in full and explains how to read them; this article concentrates on how to ask the questions that produce them.

Which brand awareness survey questions should you ask?

The questions below form a complete awareness module, set out in the order they should be asked. Each is written to be neutral, and each builds on the answer before it. Adapt the category wording to the way your buyers describe it, not the way your organisation does.

1. Category screening. "Which of these have you bought or used in the last 12 months?" This confirms the respondent is in the market before any brand is mentioned.

2. Spontaneous awareness, first mention. "When you think of [category], which brand first comes to mind?" An open text box, with no list visible.

3. Spontaneous awareness, total. "Which other [category] brands can you think of?" Again open, so the answers reflect memory rather than recognition.

4. Prompted awareness. "Which of these brands have you heard of, even if only by name?" A list of your brand and its competitors, shown in random order.

5. Recognition. A logo, pack or advertisement with the brand name removed: "Which brand do you think this is?" This tests whether your distinctive assets are doing their job.

6. Usage. "Which of these have you ever used?" followed by "Which do you use most often?" This separates awareness from experience.

7. Consideration. "Which of these would you consider the next time you need [category]?" The most commercially important question in the module.

8. Associations. "Which of these brands do you associate with each of the following?" A short list of attributes that matter to buyers in your category.

9. Source of awareness. "Where, if anywhere, have you seen or heard anything about [brand] recently?" This links awareness to the activity that may be driving it.

Together these brand awareness survey questions give you more than a single awareness figure. They give you a funnel: how many people know you, how many would consider you and how many use you, set against the same measures for every competitor.

Why does question order matter so much?

Because every question changes what the respondent knows when they answer the next one. If a list of brands appears before the spontaneous questions, the spontaneous answers are no longer spontaneous: the respondent has just been reminded which brands exist. The same applies to advertising. Once someone has been shown an advertisement, their answers about the brand reflect the advertisement rather than the market.

The rule is to move from the least prompted question to the most prompted, and to take every brand measure before any stimulus is shown. A well-designed tracker therefore asks its brand questions first and only then shows advertising, often with the brand name removed, so that recognition can be measured honestly before the brand is revealed.

How do you design a brand awareness survey that can be trusted?

Design matters more than the questions themselves, because a perfect question asked of the wrong people produces a precise answer to the wrong problem. Work through the following steps in order.

Step 1: Define the decision the survey will inform

Start with what you will do differently depending on the result. A survey designed to set a campaign baseline needs different audiences and measures from one designed to size a new market.

Step 2: Define the market from the buyer's point of view

Describe the category the way buyers do. A business looking for a bank does not think in terms of "SME lending products", and a survey that uses internal language will confuse respondents and depress spontaneous awareness.

Step 3: Choose the audience and the sample size

Survey the people who buy in the category, not the general public, unless the general public is your market. Brandspeak aims for at least 100 respondents in any group you intend to report separately, whether that is a region, a customer type or an age band, so that differences between groups can be read with confidence.

Sample quality matters as much as size. A 2020 study by the Pew Research Center found that opt-in online samples contained between 4% and 7% bogus respondents, depending on the source (Pew Research Center). Screening questions, attention checks and a review of open answers before analysis are what keep those responses out of the results.

Step 4: Build the competitor list from the market

Include the brands buyers actually weigh up, including the challengers and indirect alternatives, rather than the ones your organisation watches. The spontaneous answers from a first survey are often the best guide to who belongs on the prompted list next time.

Step 5: Write neutral questions and pilot them

Avoid wording that signals a preferred answer, randomise the order of brand lists, and test the survey on a small number of respondents before full fieldwork. The Market Research Society Code of Conduct sets out the standards that respondents and clients are entitled to expect.

Step 6: Time the fieldwork deliberately

Run the survey when it will tell you something useful, and note anything unusual in the market at the time. A survey fielded in the middle of a competitor's major campaign will reflect that campaign, which is fine if you know it and misleading if you do not.

How should spontaneous answers be coded?

Spontaneous questions produce free text, and free text has to be coded before it can be counted. Respondents misspell brand names, use the name of a sub-brand or product, abbreviate, or name a retailer when they mean a manufacturer. Each of those has to be assigned to the right brand, or the spontaneous figures will understate some brands and overstate others.

The coding frame should be agreed before the first wave and kept the same in every wave that follows, so that a change in spontaneous awareness reflects a change in the market rather than a change in how answers were classified.

How do you analyse brand awareness survey results?

Read the results as a funnel and as a comparison, never as a single number. The most useful analysis looks at how many people move from one stage to the next, for your brand and for each competitor, because that shows where you are losing potential buyers.

A brand with high prompted awareness but low consideration has a different problem from one with low awareness and high conversion. The first is known but not wanted, and needs work on what the brand stands for. The second is wanted by those who know it, and needs reach. Always check the base size behind any figure you report, and treat differences between small groups as directional unless they are statistically significant.

Why does a one-off brand awareness survey mislead?

A single survey gives you a snapshot with nothing to compare it against. You cannot tell whether 25% awareness is rising, falling or flat, or whether last quarter's campaign made any difference. Seasonal patterns, competitor activity and news events all move awareness, and one reading cannot separate them from the effect of your own marketing.

The answer is to repeat the same survey, with the same questions, the same sample design and the same timing, at regular intervals. That is brand awareness tracking, and it turns a number into a trend. It also lets you add further measures over time, from the brand tracking metrics that predict purchase to the wider picture of brand health that awareness feeds into.

Should you run a brand awareness survey yourself or use an agency?

Survey platforms make it easy to run a quick awareness check yourself, and for a simple question with a clear audience that can be the right choice. The risks lie in sample quality, question order and interpretation, all of which are harder to get right than they look.

An agency earns its fee when the decision matters, when the audience is hard to reach, as business buyers often are, or when the results need to be repeated and compared over time. If you are weighing up suppliers, our guide to the leading brand awareness agencies in the UK sets out who does what, and our guide to measuring brand awareness explains how survey measures fit alongside behavioural ones.

Conclusion: the survey is the starting point, not the answer

A brand awareness survey is the most reliable way to find out how well your brand is known among the people who could buy from you. Its value depends almost entirely on design: the right audience, neutral questions asked in the right order, a competitor list drawn from the market and a sample large enough to read.

Its greatest value, however, comes from repetition. One survey tells you where you stand. The same survey repeated tells you whether your marketing is working, which is the question most organisations actually need answered. If you would like help designing a brand awareness survey, or turning one into a tracking programme, get in touch with Brandspeak.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many people do you need for a brand awareness survey?

Brandspeak aims for at least 100 respondents in each group you intend to report separately, such as a region or customer type. A survey of the whole market with no sub-groups can work with a few hundred, but most programmes are designed in the hundreds so that segments can be compared.

How long should a brand awareness survey be?

An awareness-only module can be answered in about five minutes. A survey that also covers usage, consideration and brand associations typically runs to 10 to 15 minutes, which is long enough for depth without tiring respondents.

Should spontaneous or prompted questions come first?

Spontaneous questions must always come first. Showing a list of brands before asking people to name them unprompted reminds them which brands exist, and the spontaneous figure is no longer genuine.

How many competitor brands should a survey include?

Include the brands your buyers genuinely consider, which usually means between six and twelve. The spontaneous answers from a first survey are the best guide to which brands belong on the list.

Can I use a survey template?

A template is a reasonable starting point for question wording, but it cannot define your category, your audience or your competitor set. Those decisions determine whether the results are useful, and they have to be made for your market.

Should a brand awareness survey be run online or by telephone?

Most are now run online, which is faster and allows the brand list to be randomised for every respondent. Telephone can still suit hard-to-reach business audiences, where an interviewer can confirm that the right person is answering.

About the Author

Jeremy Braune is Managing Director and Head of Research at Brandspeak. He has more than 30 years of client-side and agency-side experience, and has led research in more than 40 markets for clients including Diageo, Nintendo, AXA, General Motors, British Airways, Santander, Muller Dairy and Lloyds Bank.

Before Brandspeak, Jeremy was Global Account Director for Diageo at Millward Brown (now Kantar), Head of Customer Experience at Detica (now BAE Systems) and Head of Insight at EHS Brann (now Helia). He has also delivered lectures on the MBA programme at London Business School.

Jeremy’s conviction is that research should work as a strategic growth engine rather than a reporting function: evidence that tells an organisation what to do next, not simply what has already happened.

He is a member of the Association for Qualitative Research and the Market Research Society. To discuss a project, contact Brandspeak on 0203 858 0052 or at enquiries@brandspeak.co.uk.