Strategic brand association maps:

developing brand insight

Brian D. Till
School of Business Administration, Loyola University, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Daniel Baack
Daniels College of Business, University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, USA, and
Brian Waterman
Waterman Research Solutions, LLC, St Louis, Missouri, USA

Abstract
Purpose – The primary purpose of this paper is to illustrate a new methodology for gaining actionable, strategic insight into a brand’s associations and
its competitive uniqueness vis-à-vis key competitors.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors integrate free association protocols, response latency, and more conventional scale items to develop a
strategic overview of a brand’s associations and to depict brands’ strategic meaning in a comprehensive visual presentation.
Findings – The authors show, via an example featuring peanut butter brands, how their methodology effectively uncovers associations that the market
has for the brands and how strong, unique, relevant, and favorable those associations are.
Research limitations/implications – This methodology is most appropriate for four to six brands at a time.
Practical implications – The strategic brand association map process demonstrated provides managers with a very clear, consumer-driven, strategic
view of the associations their brand has, and how those associations may (or may not) be serving to differentiate their brand. Additionally, these
strategic brand association maps serve as an excellent diagnostic as to the overall health of a brand and can provide actionable insight for better
understanding strategic reasons why a particular brand may be under-performing against expectations.
Originality/value – Brand associations are one of the fundamental cornerstones of brand value. Brand associations serve to differentiate and create
meaning for brands. Better understanding and managing a brand’s associations is a fundamental role of brand managers. This process illustrates a new
way to give brand managers strategic, consumer-driven insight into their brand’s associative network.

Keywords Brands, Brand equity, Product differentiation, Competitive advantage

Paper type Research paper

An executive summary for managers and executive
readers can be found at the end of this article.
Introduction
One of the most fundamental tasks of brand managers is to
understand and manage the set of associations around their
brand. These associations (both intended and unintended)
give meaning to the brand are an important component of
brand equity. Here we present a methodology designed to give
managers a strategic, comprehensive and consumer-driven
view of their brand and how their brand is differentiated vis-à-
vis key competitors.
Brand equity is one of the core concepts in marketing and
has been the focus of much research over the last 30 years
(Aaker, 1991; Keller, 1993). The concept is traditionally
defined as the “marketing effects uniquely attributable to the
brand” (Keller, 1993, p. 1). With an estimated 17 out of 20
new brands failing (Hart and Murphy, 1998), brand equity is
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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Journal of Product & Brand Management
20/2 (2011) 92– 100
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/10610421111121080]
especially important for practitioners. Many brand equity
scholars stress its importance as a source of firm competitive
advantage (e.g. Aaker, 1996; Bendixen et al., 2004; Campbell,
2002; Tong and Hawley, 2009; Hsieh, 2004). This
competitive advantage is based on the price premium
attained, increased efficiency and effectiveness of marketing
programs, increased margins, increased customer demand
and satisfaction, brand extension facilitation, negotiation
leverage, and lower vulnerability to competitors (Aaker, 1992;
Bendixen et al., 2004). Research on brand equity has
supported these claims by linking it to a variety of
performance measures such as profit and market
performance (Baldauf and Cravens, 2003) as well as stock
market performance (Aaker and Jacobson, 2001).
One key component of brand equity is the associations
consumers have with the brand (Aaker, 1991; Keller, 1993).
For example, consumers may associate “refreshing,” “youth,”
and “caffeine” with the brand Pepsi, and these associations
then may drive their choice of this brand (Keller, 1993).
Brand associations have been called “the heart and soul of the
brand” (Aaker, 1996, p. 8), and “fundamental to the
understanding of customer-based brand equity” (Hsieh,
2004, p. 33). The central role of brand associations in the
creation and maintenance of brand equity is widely accepted
(e.g. Chaudhuri, 1999; Hart and Murphy, 1998; Hsieh, 2004;
Maltz, 1991; Walvis, 2008; Wansink, 2003). As such, any
insights into the measurement and improved understanding of

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 Strategic brand association maps: developing brand insight
Brian D. Till, Daniel Baack and Brian Waterman
brand associations represent a significant contribution to the
brand equity literature.
Brand associations are important to practitioners for a
variety of reasons. First, they help consumers process and
retrieve information and can help differentiate or position the
brand. Second, if the associations are positive, they will create
beneficial attitudes and feelings and provide a reason to buy.
Lastly, brand associations may be exploited to create effective
brand extensions (Aaker, 1991). Overall, the selection,
creation, and maintenance of brand associations are among
the most important steps in the management of brand equity
(Aaker, 1991).
Due to their fundamental importance, measurement of
brand associations is at the center of brand management. One
of the most important tasks for brand managers is to
understand and manage the set of associations around their
brand. Moreover, recent academic work on brand equity has
called for the development of “brand maps” and “richer,
more comprehensive, and actionable models of brand equity”
(Keller, 2001, p. 5). Henderson et al. (1998) complain that:
“few papers in the marketing field have gone beyond the basic
definitions of associative networks” (p. 307). Most
importantly, John et al. (2006) note that “barriers remain in
making brand-mapping techniques more accessible to
marketing practitioners” (p. 550). Here we attempt to fill
this gap in the literature by presenting a methodology
designed to map brand meaning. These maps present
managers with a strategic, comprehensive and consumer-
driven view of their brand, and how their brand is
differentiated from key competitors.
Brand equity and brand associations
Brand equity is considered the “set of brand assets and
liabilities linked to a brand . . . that add to or subtract from the
value provided by a product or service” (Aaker, 1991, p. 15).
Keller (1993) adds by defining customer-based brand equity
(as compared to financial-based brand equity) as “the
differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response
to the marketing of the brand” (Keller, 1993, p. 2).
Both Aaker and Keller emphasize the important role of
brand associations. Aaker (1991), in his book, Managing
Brand Equity, conceptualizes brand equity in terms of five
dimensions: brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived
quality, brand associations, and other proprietary brand
assets. Aaker (1991) defines brand associations as “anything
linked in memory to a brand” (p. 109), and states that the
core role of brand associations is to create meaning for
consumers. Keller (1993) breaks brand equity down into
brand awareness (recall and recognition) and brand image
(measured in terms of the favorability, strength, and
uniqueness of the brand associations). Together, both of
these writers focus on measuring brand equity in terms of
consumer perceptions of the brand, and emphasize the
importance of consumer knowledge and brand associations as
fundamental building blocks of brand image.
Aaker (1991) and Keller’s (1993) research and discussion
of brand associations are rooted in the cognitive psychology
theory of associative networks. This model has been referred
to as the human associative memory (HAM) model, the
Hebbian model, the Bayesian model, the spreading activation
model, and the connectionist model (Janizsewski and Van
Osselaer, 2000; Van Osselaer and Janiszewski, 2001) (for
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more detailed reading on the theory see Collins and Loftus
(1975) or Raaijmakers and Shiffrin (1981)). Overall, all of
these associative network models assume that “declarative
knowledge is represented as a network of concept nodes
connected by links that are strengthened each time two events
co-occur” i.e. “what fires together, wires together” (Van
Osselaer and Janiszewski, 2001, p. 12).
These associative networks then represent the core
structure of memory. Retrieval from long-term memory
occurs when information is recalled through a process of
spreading activation. This process involves the activation of
one node, which, if this activation passes a threshold, can then
lead to the activation of linked nodes. If enough nodes are
activated across the network to break the recall threshold,
recall occurs (Keller, 1993; Henderson et al., 1998).
Rooted in the associative network theory, Keller (1993)
posits that brand associations differ in three important ways.
First, associations have different strengths, that is, they have
stronger or weaker links to the brand’s node in memory.
Second, associations differ in terms of favorability, i.e. have
differences in how their associations are evaluated, positively
or negatively. Lastly, some associations are more unique than
others.
In addition to Keller’s (1993) focus on favorability,
strength, and uniqueness, two other brand association
features are important. The first of these is number of
associations. While it is not a key feature of a single brand
association, the number of associations for a brand is
potentially relevant for practitioners (Krishnan, 1996).
Number of brand associations has been found to influence
brand awareness, and may also influence the effectiveness of
advertising activities (Krishnan, 1996, Meyers-Levy, 1989).
The final brand association feature is relevance. Campbell
(2002) mentions that the brand associations that practitioners
should focus on are those that are “meaningful and relevant to
customers” (p. 213) and Hart and Murphy (1998) state the
successful branding is founded on creating distinctiveness in a
consumer relevant way. Beyond this academic perspective,
many of the commercial measures of brand equity emphasize
relevance, including Young and Rubicam’s brand equity
measure and the Landor ImagePower survey.
Features of brand associations
Based on the theoretical perspective of memory as a network
of interconnected nodes, our methodology is designed to
reveal the associations that are directly part of a brand’s
immediate network, and also provide a detailed analysis of
those associations. Based on a review of past work on brand
we focus on five features of brand associations:
1 Strength.
2 Favorability/valence.
3 Uniqueness.
4 Relevance.
5 Number.
Strength
Strength of association is defined as the intensity of the
connection between the association and the brand node.
Associations have different strengths, i.e. they have stronger
or weaker connections to the node. The stronger the
association, the more accessible the association will be via
spreading activation. One of the central goals of any
 Strategic brand association maps: developing brand insight
Brian D. Till, Daniel Baack and Brian Waterman
marketing campaign is to influence the strength of consumers’
associations with the brand and exposure to marketing
messages should increase association strength (Henderson
et al., 1998). Research has linked strength of association to
brand evaluations (Dillon et al., 2001) and has suggested the
topic as a potential area for future research (Krishnan, 1996).
Favorability
Favorability of the association is defined as the degree to
which the association is perceived as a positive or negative
feature for a brand. Brand associations vary in terms of
favorability or valence. Some associations are seen as more
positive or negative than others, and marketers certainly strive
to create those more favorable associations. Dacin and Smith
(1994, p. 230) note “the favorability of consumers’
predispositions toward a brand is perhaps the most basic of
all brand associations and is at the core of many
conceptualizations of brand strength/equity.” Krishnan
(1996, p. 393) proclaims that “a strong brand should focus
on consistently achieving net positive associations,” and
statistically links association favorability to high levels of
brand equity.
Uniqueness
Association uniqueness is defined as the degree to which the
association is perceived as a distinct and different brand
feature within the product category. Some associations are
more unique than others. This means that some associations
may be shared with many competing brands and be typical for
a product category while others may be unique to just one or a
smaller number of brands. Marketers often use brand-
positioning strategies in an attempt to differentiate via unique
associations, and this differentiation is often a source of
competitive advantage (Farquhar, 1989; Chaudhuri, 2002;
Lu et al., 2008). Many discussions of branding strategy put
differentiation based on uniqueness front and center (Hart
and Murphy, 1998). Experimentally, uniqueness has been
linked to better brand evaluations (Dillon et al., 2001) and
higher levels of brand equity (Krishnan, 1996).
Relevance
The relevance of the association is defined as how much
people perceive the association as a valuable, important, and
purchase decision driving feature for a brand within the
product category. Some brand associations are more relevant
to consumers than others. For example, the color red is
typically strongly associated with Coca-Cola, but it is not so
clear how motivating this association is for consumers. On the
other hand, consumers may also typically link Coca-Cola with
the potentially more relevant association American. Campbell
(2002) stresses that practitioners should focus on associations
that are “meaningful and relevant to customers” (p. 213) and
Hart and Murphy (1998) state that successful branding is
about creating distinctiveness in a consumer relevant way.
Number
Number is the last feature of brand association to discuss. It is
defined as simply the number of associations in the
consumer’s associative network for a brand. In terms of
associative network theory, number refers to a count of the
number of primary associations around a primary or focal
node (Henderson et al., 1998).
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Strategic brand association map methodology
The goal of our methodology is to provide managers a clear
and comprehensive view of the market’s associations for their
(and competitor) brand(s) – and to provide a quick, easy-to-
use visual representation of the key characteristics of those
associations. Our methodology for developing strategic brand
association maps consists of five main steps:
1 Determine the competitive set.
2 Generate free associations.
3 Collect response latency data for strength of associations.
4 Measure uniqueness, relevance, and favorability of
associations.
5 Construct the strategic brand association maps.
We have successfully employed this methodology with a
Fortune 500 firm. For reasons of confidentially, we present
here an example developed with non-proprietary data. The
product category for this example is peanut butter.
Determine the competitive set
This methodology is typically done with a set of four to six
brands within the same category. The competitive set can be
determined one of two ways. Either consumers can free
associate brand names using the category as a prompt, or,
more commonly, the client identifies four to six brands for
inclusion in the research project. In the current case, we asked
consumers in the respondent profile (men and women in the
19-25 year age range) to list brands of peanut butter for which
they were familiar.
We included a total of five brands. Three of these were
major national brands – Jif, Skippy, and Peter Pan. One,
Reese’s peanut butter, was a brand extension. The fifth brand
was a private label grocery brand, Schnuck’s.
Generate free associations
The second step is to generate the set of brand associations to
include in the main study. To generate these associations,
participants are cued with each brand name and asked to give
the first four associations that come to mind.
This method was chosen because it represents a
compromise between a discrete association task (participants
give just one response for each cue) and a continuous
association task (participants give an exhaustive list of
associations) (for a discussion of the strengths and
weaknesses of each approach see Nelson et al. (2000) and
McEvoy and Nelson (1982)). One of the potential problems
with a continuous association task is chaining, the elicitation
of a cluster of primary associations linked to each other, but
not to the focal node (brand). To help control this problem,
participants were instructed to think about the brand name
after each response (this method is taken from Krishnan,
1996). Also, to control for possible order effects, the order
brands were presented was systematically rotated. Requesting
four associations balances limiting the number of
idiosyncratic associations while ensuring a good number and
breadth of associations solicited.
This process can result in several hundred associations.
This is too many to be easily included in the next phases of
the project, and this list needs to be pruned. Some of the
associations are highly idiosyncratic to a particular
respondent, e.g. “the brand my uncle Leo uses,” and should
be dropped as they do not represent the market’s view of the
brand. Other associations are close in meaning and should be
 Strategic brand association maps: developing brand insight
Brian D. Till, Daniel Baack and Brian Waterman
combined. For example, “tastes good” and “nice taste” would
be combined into “tastes good.” This will significantly trim
the list of associations and will typically result in about 60-80
unique associations.
Response latency and strength of association
At this point, we have the five brands for the study (Jif, Peter
Pan, Skippy, Reese’s, and Schucks) as well as a large list of
associations generated using those brand names as prompts
(thick, sandwich, red, mom, creamy and so on). Participants
then engage in a response latency task in which they will
simply respond “yes” or “no” to each brand/association pair.
Their response (yes or no) as well as their speed of response
(response latency) is recorded.
For the response latency task we used Inquisit 2.0 software.
The response latency task is based on previous research on
attitudes using an associative network perspective (e.g. Fazio
and Williams, 1986; Powell and Fazio, 1984). This response
latency method has been applied to a variety of research
questions including basic attitude research (e.g. Powell and
Fazio, 1984), presidential choice (Fazio and Williams, 1986),
and product choice (Fazio et al., 1989). Our procedure is
strongly based on the method used in Fazio et al. (1992), and
is used to measure the strength of the association between
each brand association and its focal brand. For this measure,
participants are first exposed to one of the brands (such as
Skippy) for 750 milliseconds. The brand is then replaced with
one of the associations from the free association task (such as
“thick” or “red”). Participants are instructed to press, as
quickly as possible, either a key for “yes” the association
describes Skippy or a key for “no” the association does not
describe Skippy. Order of presentation of the brands and
associations is randomized to reduce any bias from order
effects or association chaining.
Fazio (1990) notes that the biggest problem with the
response latency method is its “remarkable variability” (p. 77).
Two practices were used to reduce this noise. First,
participants were instructed to respond as quickly but as
accurately as possible (the following wording was used: “Now
there are two things that I want you to keep in mind as you do
this task. First, and above all, be accurate. Don’t be in such a
hurry to respond that you regret your decision. Second, while
being accurate, try to respond as quickly as possible. So, you
should try to maximize both the speed and accuracy of your
responses” (p. 78)).Second, practice trials were used to
familiarize participants and to get the motor skill component
to a fairly constant rate. Finally, in the analysis, each
participant’s average response was used to calibrate specific
brand/association responses (in this way each participant
served as their own control).
Additionally, Fazio (1990) notes that response latency data
is typically skewed, and recommends two solutions to this
problem – removal of outliers and data transformation.
Following these suggestions, outliers were identified and
removed. As some individuals are slow responders, outliers
must be unusual responses for that individual. The data was
standardized to control for the typical positive skew.
For strength of association, only the “yes” responses (the
brand and association belong together) are analyzed. Each
brand/association pair has an average response time (averaged
across all participants who responded “yes”). We categorized
each brand/association pair as either “strong” (top 25 percent
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of response times), “medium” (middle 50 percent of response
times) or “weak” (bottom 25 percent of response times).
Uniqueness, relevance, and favorability measures
After the response latency task participants rated each
association on favorability, relevance, and uniqueness using
a seven-point Likert type scale. Each of these scales used
items previously employed in the literature. The five items
measuring favorability were based on Briñol et al. (2004) and
Campbell and Keller (2003). The eight items measuring
relevance were based on Berens et al. (2005), Zaichkowsky
(1985), and discussion between the researchers. Lastly, the
five uniqueness items were based on Netemeyer et al. (2004)
and Chaudhuri (2002). Also, following the method in Cobb-
Walgren et al. (1995), for each association subjects completed
a simple categorization of the association (not favorable,
neutral, or favorable; not relevant, neutral, or relevant).
The association scores on favorability, relevance,
uniqueness, and strength scales were then categorized into
one of three groups (low, medium, or high) based on a
quartile analysis of the mean score for each association. The
highest 25 percent of the means were categorized as high, the
lowest 25 percent were categorized as low, and the remaining
fifty percent were categorized as medium.
Constructing the brand maps
One of the key features of our process is the visual
presentation of the results in a way that is informative,
intuitive, and strategic. Each brand is presented as the center
of a constellation of associations. In order to determine which
associations actually appear on a particular brand’s map, we
used the response latency task and focus on the percentage of
participants who said “yes” that association belongs with that
brand. Since the goal is to construct a map that represents the
overall market’s view of the brand, we employed a 75 percent
threshold, though in practice this can be adjusted somewhat
depending on the idiosyncrasies of the project. If 75 percent
or more participants indicate yes that association and brand
belong together, we place it on that brand’s map.
Each of the features of brand associations is represented in
this brand map. Strength of association is represented by the
thickness of the line between each association and the brand
node (Reese’s is strongly associated with “creamy” but weakly
associated with “no wrong way to eat a Reese’s”). Favorability
of association is represented by the color of the circle. Highly
favorable associations are green (“tasty”), low favorability
associations are red (“eat with fingers”), and moderately
favorable associations are yellow (“treat”). Distance from the
brand represents association uniqueness. Associations close to
the brand are highly unique (“candy”), associations not as
close in are of mid-level uniqueness (“creamy”), and
associations far from the brand have low uniqueness
(“snack”). Circle size depicts relevance. Relevant
associations have a larger figure than less relevant
associations (“tasty” is more relevant than “orange”). See
Figure 1 for the full map of Reese’s peanut butter.
As we have worked on these projects, we have noticed that
often there are associations that appear on most of the brands’
maps. For example, in the peanut butter example “sandwich”
was an association for four of the five peanut butter brands.
These associations, while part of the association set for
consumers, do not serve to provide much strategic value in so
much as they tend to be relatively generic and/or not a
 Strategic brand association maps: developing brand insight
Brian D. Till, Daniel Baack and Brian Waterman
Figure 1 Strategic brand association map (full) for Reese’s peanut butter
differentiator for brands. Based on this, we develop for each
brand what we call a “core brand essence” map. This map
shows the brand and associations, but we remove those
associations shared by four or more of the brands. This cleans
up the maps and provides a sharper focus on those attributes
that are stronger differentiators. See Figure 2 for the core
brand essence map for Reese’s peanut butter.
Conclusion and managerial implications
The strategic brand association map methodology presented
here is a strategic, comprehensive framework designed to give
marketing and brand managers actionable insight into the
meaning their brand has vis-à-vis key competitors. These
maps depict a brand and its associations along with an
assessment of the strength, relevance, uniqueness, and
favorability of each association.
This tool has a number of applications:
1 Brand audit. “Brand audits” are increasingly common
practitioner measure of brand health. While there is
variation in what a brand audit consists of, typically
included is some measure or indicator of brand meaning.
As a brand’s meaning is fundamentally related to the
associations that a brand has, a better understanding of a
brand’s associations is an important component of
effective brand audits. The maps presented here would
be an integral part of an actionable brand audit. They
provide a good indication of the overall health of brand.
Maps for healthy brands will have some associations that
are strong, favorable, relevant, and unique. To the extent
that a brand may be unhealthy and struggling in the
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Volume 20 · Number 2 · 2011 · 92 –100
marketplace, this tool provides a diagnostic as to what in
the brand’s meaning may be weak or failing to strike a
chord with consumers.
2 Positioning check. Most brands will have a primary
association that they want consumers to have for their
brand. This tool goes beyond simply verifying that “yes”
people have this association with the brand, but provides
an assessment of the strength of that association. The
expectation is that the desired association would have a
strong association with the brand and a weaker association
with competitor brands. Ideally, the intended positioning
association will show up on the core brand essence map
for only that one brand.
3 Portfolio management. Many companies have multiple
brands competing in the same category. One of the
challenges is to ensure that these brands are sufficiently
differentiated from each other. These strategic brand
association maps give managers a clear sense of the extent
to which multiple brands in a portfolio are differentiated
or overlap extensively with each other. Such information
can lead to trimming the brand portfolio so as to maintain
brands with maximum differentiation. It may more clearly
identify how brands are differentiated and guide
marketing activities to strengthen this separation.
4 Crisis management. There are, unfortunately, times when a
brand is beset by bad news. Product recall, bad publicity
for a brand’s endorser, and other such events can
potentially damage a brand’s good name. These strategic
brand association maps can be generated immediately
after such a crisis to assess the extent to which the negative
event has “attached” itself to the brand. This
 Strategic brand association maps: developing brand insight
Brian D. Till, Daniel Baack and Brian Waterman
Figure 2 Core brand essence map for Reese’s peanut butter
methodology can also be used some time later after the
brand has engaged in crisis management tactics as a check
to see if there is a longer-term impact on the brand.
5 Communication management. Communication managers
need to understand brand meaning in order to make
strategic decisions about what future communications
should emphasize. Also, it is important to track over time
how communication programs are shifting consumer
perceptions of the brand. Strategic brand association
maps give managers a baseline view of the brand and also
allow for tracking the effect of communications by how
such communications might either add a new association
to a brand or strengthen an existing association.
This strategic brand map process provides strategic insight
into how a brand is viewed in the marketplace and how that
brand is (or is not) differentiated from key competitors
through the associations the brand has developed. This work
can serve to reinforce the strategic direction of a brand, or
help point the way to a change in strategy that will enhance
the brand’s attractiveness to its target audience. Strategic
brand association maps can also serve as a diagnostic tool for
brands that may be struggling or otherwise be under-
performing vis-à-vis management expectations.
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About the authors
Brian D. Till is a Visiting Professor of Marketing at the School
of Business Administration, Loyola University, Chicago. He is
also a Principal of the Brand Cartography Group
(www.brandcartography.com). Dr Till’s research is in the
areas of brand equity, creativity, and non-traditional media.
Brian D. Till is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: btill@luc.edu
Daniel Baack is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the
Daniels College of Business, University of Denver. He is also
a Principal of the Brand Cartography Group (www.brandcar
tography.com). Dr Baack’s research is in the areas of brand
equity, international advertising, and culture.
Brian Waterman is the Director of Analytical Consulting for
Waterman Research Solutions, LLC in St Louis, MO and
Adjunct Professor of Statistics in Medicine at Washington
University School of Medicine. He is also a Principal of the
Brand Cartography Group (www.brandcartography.com). Mr
Waterman’s research is in the area of applied statistical
methods and decision support analytics for measuring
organizational performance.
 Strategic brand association maps: developing brand insight
Brian D. Till, Daniel Baack and Brian Waterman
Executive summary and implications for
managers and executives
This summary has been provided to allow managers and executives
a rapid appreciation of the content of this article. Those with a
particular interest in the topic covered may then read the article in
toto to take advantage of the more comprehensive description of the
research undertaken and its results to get the full benefits of the
material present.
Marketers and practitioners alike recognize that brand equity
plays an important role in successfully differentiating a brand
and securing competitive advantage. Brand equity among
other things facilitates price premiums, improves the
efficiency of marketing efforts, increases margins and raises
levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty. The brand is also
more resistant to the challenge posed by competitors. Many
researchers have also noted the link between brand equity and
improved performance, measured by such as profit and share
price.
Customer-based brand equity is seen as particularly
important and scholars propose that the concept
incorporates several different dimensions. Included among
these dimensions are the various associations that consumers
attribute to a brand. Such associations can be intentional or
unintentional and serve to generate brand image and meaning
for consumers. Managers are able to position and differentiate
the brand using these associations, which may also provide a
logical basis for brand extensions. It is therefore accepted that
management of brand equity demands associations that need
to be carefully selected, created and maintained in order to
positive influence consumer attitudes and purchase intention.
Extant literature acknowledges the existence of “associative
networks”. However, analysts have not yet been able to devise
techniques that allow marketers to compare a brand with
others through the mapping of their respective associations.
Achieving such an aim is consequently the main purpose of
the current study.
Different theorists posit that a network of associations helps
to position a brand in consumer memory and aid its recall.
The significance of an association is attributable to its:
1 Strength. This aspect is considered vital with regard to
activating other “linked nodes”. Essentially, consumers
will recall a specific brand more easily when strong
associations exist. Research has indicated a possibility that
exposure to marketing messages can increase association
strength. It is also claimed that strength of association
influences brand evaluation.
2 Favorability. This relates to whether an association is seen
as positive or negative for the brand. As with strength,
varying degrees of favorability exist. Some scholars believe
that favorability correlates with high levels of brand equity,
therefore creating associations which are more favorable is
an important objective for many marketers;
3 Uniqueness. Many associations are often a common factor
among competing brands. Others are more unique and
exclusive to a select number of brands at most. Marketers
see these associations as a potential means of achieving the
differentiation that can help secure competitive advantage
for the brand. Scholars regard association uniqueness as
critical and a boost to brand equity;
4 Relevance. Certain associations are more meaningful and
significant to consumers than others. There is some
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consensus among researchers that practitioners should
focus on these associations as they play a greater role in
making a brand more distinct.
5 Number. The amount of associations linked to a particular
brand is another significant feature. Findings have
generally suggested that brand awareness increases when
a greater number of associations exist and that advertising
activities may become more effective too.
In their article, Till et al. detail a methodology for
practitioners to use in order to acquire a “clear and
comprehensive view” of which associations the market
attributes to their brand and to rival offerings. An example
comparing five brands of peanut butter is used to illustrate
how the methodology functions.
It is usual to apply the methodology to between four and six
brands from the same product category. Clients can either
identify brands to include in the research project or relevant
consumer groups can be prompted to suggest brand names.
Selection was based on the latter here, using consumers aged
19-25. Three of the brands chosen were leading national
brands, one was a private label brand and the other a brand
extension.
Generating a set of brand associations is the next step. The
authors imposed some control here by asking respondents to
name four. A single association was considered insufficient,
whereas allowing an unlimited number raised the probability
that large numbers of personal and therefore not market
relevant associations would emerge. This helps to ensure a
more manageable number that can be condensed further by
combining those whose meanings overlap significantly.
Around 60-80 unique associations will normally be the end
result.
The next step is to identify which associations relate to
which brand. For this task, respondents are required to
respond either “yes” or “no” to given brand/association
pairings using appropriate buttons. Blending speed with
accuracy is a key requirement at this point. Termed response
latency, the process also determines the respective strength of
each association with the different brands being compared.
This process concerns the “yes” responses only and each
brand/association pairing is measured against an average
response time for the particular combination. Pairing can
then be classified as strong, medium or weak accordingly.
Following this, established scales were used for participants
to evaluate the associations on their uniqueness, favorability
and relevance. Again, classification as high, medium or low
was possible as a result.
Till et al. believe that the visual representation of results is
especially valuable to practitioners when it is “informative,
intuitive and strategic”. The typical design is to produce a
“constellation of associations” for each brand, which is
positioned in the center. An association is included on the
map providing at least 75 percent of subjects link it to the
brand in question, although certain projects may demand an
adjustment of this percentage. Line thickness, circle color,
circle size and distance are the graphical techniques used by
the authors to respectively represent association strength,
favorability, relevance and uniqueness. By inspecting the map
created for each brand, managers are able to make simple
comparisons.
Since a core objective is to identify associations likely to
generate the greatest influence the authors chose to remove
 Strategic brand association maps: developing brand insight
Brian D. Till, Daniel Baack and Brian Waterman
those that appear on most of the maps pertaining to a project.
In this case, it was noted that “sandwich” was an association
for all but one of the five peanut butter brands. Such
associations are considered generic and of minimal strategic
value. Removing them from the map helps identify
associations with a stronger capacity to differentiate the
brand.
Marketers can exploit strategic brand association maps for a
variety of purposes. They can be used diagnostically within an
auditing exercise to check brand meaning and its overall
health. Managing the strength of key associations can also
help ensure that the brand achieves and sustains its desired
position. Maps are also an invaluable tool for managers
responsible for ensuring that multiple brands in the same
portfolio are sufficiently differentiated from each other.
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com
Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
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There is scope to monitor the effectiveness of
communication activities and their impact on how
consumers perceive the brand. It is likewise suggested that
association mapping can help gauge any immediate or future
negative impact on a brand following a crisis situation like a
product recall.
The methodology proposed by Till et al. enables accurate
measurement of a brand against competing others.
Practitioners can exploit the insights provided by brand
association maps to maintain or adjust their brand
management strategy as appropriate.
(A précis of the article “Strategic brand association maps:
developing brand insight”. Supplied by Marketing Consultants for
Emerald.)