What is brand awareness
Also known as: brand recall, brand recognition, top of mind awareness
Brand awareness is how well an audience knows and remembers a brand. It has two components: brand recall, also called unaided recall, when people name the brand without help when thinking of the category, and brand recognition, when they identify the brand on seeing or hearing it. The highest level is top of mind: being the first brand that comes to mind.
A dental clinic asks 300 neighborhood residents: which clinic do you know around here? Only 9% name the clinic unaided. When the interviewer shows a list of names, 41% say they recognize it.
The diagnosis is clear: people have seen the brand, but it is not remembered when the need arises. The clinic invests in steady presence in the neighborhood and in local search. A year later, unaided recall reaches 22%.
Recall and recognition
| How it is measured | What it indicates | |
|---|---|---|
| Unaided recall | An unprompted question: which brands in this category do you know? | The brand is available in memory at the moment of choice |
| Recognition | A prompted question: do you know this brand? | People identify the brand when they see it |
| Top of mind | The first brand named unprompted | The brand is the category's reference |
Why it matters
According to Wikipedia, consumers usually buy one of the brands in their consideration set, and recall increases a brand's chances of being in it. A brand nobody remembers has to pay more, in ads and discounts, for every sale.
Recognition also reduces friction in other channels: people who already know the name click the ad more, trust the page more and decide faster.
How to measure it
- Audience surveys, with unaided and aided questions.
- Searches for the brand name on Google, tracked in Search Console and compared with competitors.
- Direct traffic to the website.
- Mentions on social media and in the press.
- Brand lift studies offered by ad platforms for video campaigns.
How to grow it
- Show up consistently, in the same channels, with the same identity.
- Tie the brand to a use situation, so it is remembered at the right moment.
- Use reach and video to meet new people, not just remarketing to those who already know you.
- Invest in local presence: Google Business Profile, partnerships, events.
- Take care of the experience, because referrals from buyers are the cheapest recognition.
Awareness and sales campaigns
Awareness and conversion campaigns often compete for the same budget. Separating them helps measure each by what it should deliver: reach, recall and brand searches for one; leads and sales for the other. Cutting all awareness spending to fund conversion tends to work in the short term and dry up demand in the following months.
Frequently asked questions
What is brand awareness?
How well an audience knows and remembers a brand, split between unaided recall and recognition.
What is the difference between recall and recognition?
With recall, people name the brand without help. With recognition, they identify the brand when they see it or hear its name.
What does top of mind mean?
Being the first brand that comes to mind when someone thinks of the category, without any prompting.
How do you measure brand awareness?
With recall and recognition surveys, brand name searches, direct traffic, mentions and brand lift studies from ad platforms.
Does brand awareness drive sales?
Indirectly. Recall raises the chance of entering the consideration set and lowers the cost of each sale, but it needs to connect to an offer and a path to purchase.
Related terms
- BrandingBranding is managing everything that shapes how people perceive a brand: name, visual identity, tone of...
- Share of voiceShare of voice is the slice a brand holds of all communication in its category. In the classic definition, it...
- Reach and impressionsReach is the number of different people who saw an ad or piece of content; impressions is the number of times...
- Brand positioningBrand positioning is the place a brand wants to hold in customers' minds relative to the alternatives: what...
- Ad frequencyFrequency is the average number of times each person saw an ad in a period: impressions divided by reach. Too...
- CPMCPM (cost per mille, or cost per thousand impressions) is what it costs to show an ad a thousand times...
Rodrigo Fávaro
Founder of ROO3, a marketing and technology agency in São José do Rio Preto, Brazil. Builds AI products running in production (Tobia, gerar.app, Pense Mercado) and maintains the AI Benchmark, a public ranking of AI models.
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