Frequently Asked Questions

Why KW Brand?

There are a few ways to answer this question:

1. KW Brand Translation specializes in brand research and strategy. We don’t develop logos. We don’t develop websites. We don’t design attractive brochures (or even unattractive brochures; we’re not designers). Brand strategy is what we love to do and we’ve gotten good at it.
2. We use market research to start our process, but we go deeper by tapping into the mindsets and emotional triggers that drive loyalty. Over the years, we’ve used a solid foundation of people-research skills to build brands that tap into the emotional triggers that make customers love an organization.
3. We help you learn how to build and sustain a brand that will make customers love you and set you apart from competitors. And, although we have developed a proprietary systems approach; each project is customized to the client. Our brand research project is customized so your brand strategy is unique.

We don’t have a lot of time or money, can I just pull together the marketing materials? Why do I need to invest in brand development?

Over the years, we’ve observed that a lot of leaders and ad agencies believe that good branding is limited to good graphic design. We believe that good marketing is first about good strategy based on good research Good design is only good design if it’s focused.

Another way to answer this question is like this: Investing the time to research and develop a solid brand strategy is like calibrating the scope on a gun; a few millimeters off, and you will completely miss the target. A good brand strategy and the organizational discipline it takes to stick with it will optimize your limited marketing dollars by keeping your brand on-message and on-target.

What’s the difference between qualitative and quantitative research?

KW Brand Translation uses quantitative research but specializes in qualitative research. Quantitative research tends to be larger in scope (more people participate) so that the results are statistically significant. The results tend to come back in the form of numbers (e.g. “X numbers of people rated Y product as being a 4.35 on a 5-point scale.”)

Quantitative research is an important part of marketing because it gives clients a solid, accurate understanding of what customers are doing or thinking. However, quantitative research, by its nature, tends to be closed (e.g. “Between A or B, which do you like better?”) and therefore while it can tell you what customers are doing or thinking, it doesn’t usually tell you why.

KW Brand Translation’s qualitative research approach is like an ethnographic study—we ask open-ended questions and delve deeply into the answers to get below the numbers and find out more about driving passions, pet peeves, values, beliefs and the all-around emotional stuff that tends to motivate or de-motivate people more than numbers will ever do. Qualitative research is deeply personal and therefore isn’t statistically significant. The goal is to look for trends as they present themselves and use the information to develop truly differentiated and emotionally compelling brand concepts.

How long will it take?

Since each of our projects is customized to the client, there’s no easy or one-size-fits-all answer to either the time or money questions. The answers to the “how long” question begins with other questions such as:

• What kinds of research will we do and how extensive will it be?
• How easy or difficult will it be to contact and tap into the minds of the research participants?
• What’s the relative status of the company brand right now?

Or in short, the scope of the project research determines the time and the cost: scope of research = time = money.

However, even once the research is done and the brand concept has been carefully worked into an integrated marketing campaign (which typically takes a few months), the work has only begun. Building brand equity in the hearts and minds of your target market requires consistency and discipline and takes years to build.