If you work in the marketing, advertising or run your own business, you may get use to the concept of Brand attributes and associations. Two of them provide the fabric of loyalty and equity research. In other hand, loyalty and equity itself are largely the result of the associations and attributes of the brand.

In the world of marketing, the terms of brand attributes has several different definitions. Therefore, in this article we will define brand attributes as the associations that people have with a product within its overall category, and the association that people have with particular brand (ex : your brand specifically).

One of the best way to understand the brand attributes that your consumers associates with your brand is to conduct brand attributes and association survey with several steps. Below is the steps that you may follow.

First, run an Initial survey with open-ended questions.

The first step you need to do before jumping to the questions about your brand specifically is to ask the costumers about how they see your brand category in general.  You may asks open-ended questions such as :

• what are some traits you look for when choosing soft drink?
• when you asked about soft drink, what specific brand that comes into your mind?

When respondents answer the question (let’s say question point one), the may provide answer like “good taste” or ” low sugar”. Keep the answer because you’ll need it to create your next survey.

Second, run a survey asking about your specific brand 

Use the answer you collect from the open-ended questions to ask a close-ended question. You might asks questions such as :

1). Which of the following traits best describe <specific brand name> ? (you can choose more than one options)

• Low sugar
• Good taste
• No Soda
• Other …

See how your brand image stack-up 

Through those survey , consumers will identify overall category attributes, figure out what attribute they personally look for, make brand association, then eventually give the answer based on how they view your brand’s image. You can use those data to analyze the gaps between what people look for and the attributes that people see in your brand so then you can use  it to understand your overall brand equity and how loyal customers are your brand.