View into the black box

Motive research HAP and its cooperation partner, the advertising agency By Heart, have presented the new, scientific tool for practical brand psychology: Brandezza. Why can no agency guarantee the success of its advertising measures? The question is of course rhetorical and can only be answered by the customer. A wealth of black-box models and theories are on the trail of their often unpredictable and emotional behavior. For over two years now, the Zurich University of Applied Psychology (HAP) and its practice partner, the agency By Heart, have also been investigating this. With the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation, which guarantees the scientific nature of the research, the team, led by Professor Daniel Süss, has conducted extensive studies with hundreds of test subjects in order to determine more precisely what customers want and what feelings, motives and attitudes - both conscious and, above all, unconscious - are driving them. To this end, the partners have developed an innovative, interdisciplinary (psychology, marketing, communication science) yet practical and profitability-oriented tool that measures and visualizes the psychological potential of brands. Light into the customer darkness thanks to practical brand psychology

Theoretical principles and models of personality and communication psychology were transferred to the field of brand management and finally subjected to multiple practical tests. In addition to diagnostic methods that capture brand personality, it was also possible to develop consulting tools based on these methods that make it possible to determine the positioning of a brand in relation to the competition and systematically optimize brand communication. Where tools did not yet exist, we developed and tested our own. The research covers a broad field: from the factor structure of brand personalities and whether these are cross-industry or industry-specific, to the differences in the brand personalities received in different linguistic and cultural areas. Topics such as "Can certain communication styles and relationship offers be derived from the respective brand personalities?", "How must a brand personality be designed in order to be perceived by consumers as a concise figure and have a credible effect?" are also dealt with scientifically.
Even after the first two consulting tools have been derived, the scientific work will continue, explains Markus Bircher, project manager and co-owner of By Heart. New results and findings from market research are continuously fed into Brandezza's range of services and critically monitored by a renowned advisory board of scientists and practitioners.
The scientific brand analysis, the assessment, is based on three steps that take two to three months: In the scan, the personality dimensions are measured, from character traits and role behavior to the gender-specific characteristics of the brand and the comparison brands. In the second step, the analysis of the psychological brand potential, the brand is examined for its authenticity, coherence, fit, weaknesses and opportunities. Finally, a concrete package of measures is put together to strengthen the brand and its success. The Performance Developer is a practical tool that has been developed for briefings, workshops and everyday marketing. In addition to determining the personality potential of a brand, Brandezza also offers the "Motivation Tree" package, which determines why customers buy a particular brand and which of their conscious and unconscious motives are decisive in the purchasing process. This analysis leads to recommendations on how the brand can develop in a success-oriented manner.
Further information can be found at
www.brandezza.ch.Luca Aloisi