Brand Association Mapping: 5 Simple Steps to Follow

Jeff Bezos brilliantly quoted, “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” Mapping your brand association lets you hear that conversation.

The feeling they get after hearing about your brand is their association with your company. Creating a brand that customers connect with is what truly matters most in standing out as the greatest brands build on a connection with their audience.

For instance, Patagonia brand is associated with durable, sustainable outdoor gear. Nike is associated with innovation, performance, self-belief, empowerment, and athletic gear.

And what makes them crystal clear about their audience perception? Brand Association Mapping. 

It is an actionable map that reveals how your brand lives and breathes in the consumer’s minds that matter most. It helps you bridge the gap and coordinate your brand’s existence with its perception.

We will walk you through the details of the brand association map to adjust your branding to the audience’s perception.

What is brand association mapping?

So, what is this powerful “map “we’re talking about?

At its core, brand association mapping is the visual representation of identifying and organizing the entire network. The thoughts, feelings, attributes, experiences, and memories that people naturally link to your brand add up to the visual.

Let’s understand it by example. Think your brand is the central hub in a large, complex spider web. And many individual strands are branching out from the center. Each thread represents a distinct association connected to your brand in an individual mind:

• Some strands are thick and strong (core, positive associations).
• Some are thin and fragile (weak or infrequent links).
• Some might even be damaged or sticky (negative associations you need to address).
• Some threads connect directly to competitors, showing how you’re viewed comparatively.
  

Mapping is the act of carefully tracing, documenting, and visualizing the entire web. It reveals not just the obvious connections but also the hidden threads and unexpected links that truly define your brand’s position.

Why is mapping brand association critical?

Brand association mapping delivers practical insights that help improve your branding and marketing strategies. Here is how mapping pays off with game-changing clarity around your brand:

1. Closes the Perception Gap: It reveals the shocking difference between how you see your brand and what customers actually think and feel. No more guessing!
2. Finds Your Gold: You can discover your hidden strengths—the positive words, feelings, and memories linked to your brand. This will help you, and you can shout about them louder.
3. Mark the Weak Spots: You can identify fuzzy, missing, or negative associations early before they hurt your business.
4. Beats the Competition: Shows exactly how you’re different (or too similar!) in customers” minds so you can stand out.
5. Stops Wasting Money: Brand can use consumer feelings about your brand into actionable intelligence, so every marketing dollar, product tweak, or campaign hits the mark.
   

In a nutshell, it gives you a crystal-clear picture of your brand’s true place in your customers’ minds so you can confidently lead.

5 Common Types of Brand Association

Customers may link your brand with emotions, words, images, and more. Here are some of the common types of brand associations:

1. Personality-based association

This type of perception is built around personality, which can be real or fictional. Like ELON Musk for Tesla, drum-playing Energizer Bunny, or Ronald McDonald mascot.  

2. Benefit-based association

Typically, this shows how your product improves people’s lives. It’s all about spotlighting the product’s benefits. For instance, Tide laundry detergent is mainly linked with its benefits.

Tide removes all kinds of stains, whether it’s mayonnaise stains or motor oil stains from clothes. This detergent product makes consumers’ lives stress-free as they don’t have to worry about the strains on their favorite clothes.

3. Attribute-based association

Another type of brand association is attribute-based. It can involve high-quality services, luxury products, or a trademark brand color.

Rolex has created a connection with consumers with its high quality, reliability, and innovative watches. Its luxurious quality association made them purchase expensive watches without thinking twice.

4. Interest-based association

This particular type of brand association is built on the consumer’s interest in the product or service.

For instance, the NIKE brand association with consumers interested in famous sports figures creates a positive perception of their athletic gear.

5. Attitude-based association

You can create an attitude-based connection by coordinating your brand with values that resonate with the audience. It can be sustainability, fitness, or celebrity persona.

For example, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream brand firmly stands on its values of making the world a better place. Whether it’s human rights, social and economic justice for special communities, or protecting the Earth’s natural system, Ben & Jerry’s is strongly linked to using ice cream to change the world.

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Brand Association Map

Brand association mapping identifies consumers’ perceptions of the brand’s values, qualities, and overall image.

While look over these associations to get valuable insights to level up brand strategy and perception in the market. So Let’s dig into the steps to map your brand association.

1. Define Your Goal & Audience

First of all, define the purpose of your mapping and the goal you want to achieve. With the purpose in mind, specify your ideal audience and the competitors you want to map.

2. Collect Raw Data

The second step to map is to gather consumer data through surveys or interviews. While Typeform and SurveyMonkey can help you with your online consumer surveys.

What words come to their mind when they think of your brand? And why do these words pop up?

Carry out your customer interviews.

“What feeling do they get using our product? Describe a memorable experience.

In addition to that, browse through your business Google reviews to know the repeated pharses used for your business.

Meanwhile, a raw list of brand attributes can help you understand perception. Next, consult your marketing, sales, and customer service teams as they interact with consumers.

• What do customers often say about the brand?
• What patterns do they notice?
  

3. Turn raw data into structured insights.

After grabbing hold of the data, examine and pinpoint the common themes or patterns. No matter ifit’ss positive, negative, or neutral, here you need to be transparent and honest to fill the gap.

Are there certain attributes that are commonly connected with your brand? Any specfic elemnt that customers highlight in their feedback. This means you will be able to identify the critical elements that are associated with your brand.

4. Create the Map

Place your brand in the center of the circle, then repeat and prominently display the attribute in the first ring. Next, in the second ring, put low-frequency themes. Also, put competitors and their attributes in the ring to assess your position. At the same time, use the code for brand attributes, product competitors, and close concepts. See the example below of the Nike brand association map for visual understanding.

5. Turn the map into a strategy.

Ultimately, design the strategy by analyzing your strengths and weaknesses and filling the gap your brand has.  Remember, it’s not a one-time thing. You have to access and check your brand association from time to time. You can set a yearly or monthly remapping date to track your brand’s progress.

Summing Up

What you think your brand stands for and what actually pops into your customers minds when they hear your brand name are two sides of the coin.

Your brand is not what you think. It’s what your customers think. And you can know what’s in their mind by mapping your brand association. Therefore, exceute Annual Mapping to get regular check-in on overall brand health and perception.