On Brand Valence

A Research Byte from Action Marketing Research

For some time and for a range of clients, we have been using a new yet simple metric for brand strength. The Wikipedia tells us that in psychology, "valence refers to the emotional value associated with a stimulus." Such valences are explicitly positive or negative.

We know that before higher-order, "rational" attributions are made to a brand (or an ad), we have an emotional (gut) feeling about it. We like it or dislike it in varying degrees, or it may evoke no emotional resonance at all.

Given that psychophysical reality, why not use an actual positive-negative scale to assess response to brands? We offer study respondents a scale ranging from –5 (dislike very much, or very unfavorable) to +5 (like very much, or very favorable). The neutral mid-point is zero, which intuitively means "I feel nothing." Zero. Nada.

Our experience so far shows that:

• The average ratings can differ markedly across categories. In some cases, no brand has a mean anywhere near negative territory. In others, negative ratings are not unusual, even for established brands.
• Within categories, the dispersion of mean ratings across brands has been meaningful and consistent with other brand measures.

In our perhaps heretical opinion, brand valence is preferable as an overall measure to purchase intent (for established products). The latter is subject to other possible influences such as need. Our brand valence score gets at the pure emotional value of a brand.

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