Measuring trademark awareness in sociological surveys

Abstract

In sociological research, including those used to support legal decisionmaking, situations often arise where the awareness of certain trademarks becomes a subject of debate. According to the author, this demonstrates the need to improve measurement tools. Their division into recall (unaided awareness) and recognition (aimed awareness) scales is considered to be common. The author conducted an empirical study of the properties of the latter type of tools. A series of five cognitive interviews, conducted using the probing method with respondents participating in mass surveys, was aimed at identifying the potential for interpreting the standard wording of brand awareness questions. It revealed that the dichotomous form (I know/I don’t know) may underestimate the true extent of brand awareness in general. This hypothesis was tested in a split-sample street survey, divided into control and experimental groups. The wording of the control group questions was traditional for measuring brand awareness, offering respondents a nominal response scale. In the experimental group, the wording of the questions used an ordinal scale.

The primary hypothesis was that, due to the inaccuracy of respondents’ interpretation of the dichotomous scale, the level of awareness in the control group would be lower than in the experimental group. Empirical testing confirmed that using dichotomous response options systematically underestimates the level of awareness of trademarks and other objects studied in mass surveys. Although the extent of this underestimation will not be critical for many practical purposes, to avoid additional measurement error in some cases, the author concludes that it is advisable to use ordinal recognition scales instead of conventional nominal ones.