Measuring butterflies with 23plusone and IAT.

Measuring butterflies with 23plusone and IAT

Brand appeal is the pull you feel toward a brand. Like butterflies when you’re in love. The big question is simple: how do you measure a feeling?

What we measured so far (explicit)

Until now we’ve measured brand appeal with two direct questions (see the image at the bottom of this post). The brand appeal score is the average of those two answers.

This method has been validated extensively and works well in practice. It has produced a wide range of outcomes, with high scores for brands like Coca-Cola, Unox, and Audi, and low scores for brands like Skoda, Oranjeboom, and Zilveren Kruis.

Why we’re exploring a new route

We think people often lack the introspective skills to report how strongly they feel attracted to a brand. On top of that, peer pressure and socially desirable answers can distort explicit scores.

So we’re pushing our measurement approach further, toward methods that can capture what happens before people start explaining themselves.

The next step (implicit)

Celeste Miller, research intern at the BR-ND Lab, is leading a project to experiment with implicit attitudinal testing, building on insights from Project Implicit.

Project Implicit is a collaborative research effort between Harvard University, the University of Virginia, and the University of Washington. It explores thoughts and feelings that exist outside of conscious awareness or outside of conscious control.

The goal is twofold:

• Provide a safe, secure, and well-designed platform to investigate psychological issues.
• Offer participants an engaging experience that still yields useful information.

Current trials

We’re running a series of trials to investigate implicit measures of brand appeal. Volunteers are invited to participate.

We’re measuring brand appeal for car brands including Volkswagen, Skoda, Audi, BMW, Mini, and Fiat. Early signals are encouraging.

Below are the links to these trials:

1. BMW & Skoda (trials discontinued)
2. VW & Fiat (trials discontinued)
3. Mini & Fiat 500 (trials discontinued)

Your invitation

You’re warmly invited to run these tests and share your results, observations, and ideas with us.