Brand Research Launch Aims to Break the Mould

Two UK-based brand specialists have launched a new system, 'Smash Your Brand', to help clients optimise brands at both a conscious and subconscious level.

Partners Brandphonics and BRAND sense agency say that Smash Your Brand fuses the former's revolutionary approach to understanding the drivers of consumer choice and the emotional meaning of a brand to consumers, with the latter's multi-sensory branding and consultancy expertise. The method includes workshops with brand owners, consumer research, and consultancy on brand building.

Brandphonics was set up in May this year, as part of the MMR Group, and aims to combine the emotional and functional aspects of consumer choice with more traditionally-researched factors based around liking and propensity to buy. Director Toby Coates says the new product's name derives from the brief for designers of the iconic Coca Cola bottle, who were told to produce a design that even when smashed to pieces would still allow the brand to be identified by a single piece.

BRAND sense agency was set up in 2006 and inspired by Martin Lindstrom's book Brand Sense. CEO Simon Harrop explains the latest launch: 'Most marketing spend is directed into a very narrow channel, dominated by focusing on how consumers see brands. But truly memorable brands achieve greatness by paying attention to all aspects of their interaction with consumers, and by understanding how apparently small changes that are made to the sensory characteristics (physical properties) of a product can have huge implications for the emotional and functional communication of a brand.'

The partners' web sites are at www.brandphonics.com and www.brandsenseagency.com .