The short answer
Brand associations are the memories, images, feelings, places and people tied to a brand in someone’s mind. Asking about them directly captures only the ones people can put into words. There are two ways to reach the rest. Implicit tests record fast, automatic reactions, such as how quickly someone links a brand to a word, and they suit testing a single ad or pack. Memory mapping draws out the memories attached to a brand one at a time and measures how strongly each is tied to it, for your brand and for your competitors. It shows the whole network: what helps the brand, what holds it back and what is missing.
What brand associations are
A brand is the network of memories and associations that has built up around it in people’s minds over years, often from childhood. Some are images: a pack, a color, a character. Some are moments: a family breakfast, a first car, a parent who always bought it. Some are words that feel true: trusted, old-fashioned, expert, expensive, fun, for people like me.
Together they form a network. We call it the Brand Connectome®. Each association sits there with a strength and a direction:
- Positive associations pull buyers toward the brand.
- Negative associations quietly push buyers away, often without ever showing up as a bad rating.
- Missing associations leave gaps that a competitor can fill.
The network, not any single rating, decides which brand feels like the obvious choice in the moment.
Why asking people doesn’t work
Ask people what they think of a brand and they will tell you. The answer will sound sensible, and it will leave out most of what drives the choice. Research has long shown that people have little reliable access to the reasons behind their own choices (Nisbett and Wilson, Psychological Review, 1977).
“It’s not that the consumer means to deceive the poor surveyor, it’s simply that consumers can’t tell you why they buy; that’s because their decisions are driven by instinctive brand preferences, not conscious decisions.”
Surveys, focus groups and image ratings are still useful. They tell you what people are willing and able to say. To reach the associations below that, you need a different kind of measure.
Three ways to measure associations, side by side
| Route | How it works | Good for | Its limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct questions | Surveys, focus groups and image ratings ask people which words fit the brand | The associations people can say out loud | Misses what people can’t put into words, or won’t |
| Implicit tests | Reaction-time tests, eye tracking and biometric or brain measures record fast, automatic responses | Testing one ad, pack or name against another | One response to one stimulus, not the whole network |
| Memory mapping | Guides buyers through their memories of a brand, then measures how strongly each association is tied to it | Seeing the whole network for your brand and your competitors, and what to change | A deep read that takes weeks, not a daily dashboard |
Implicit tests are the right tool when you have a specific choice to make, such as which of two packs reads faster. Memory mapping is the right tool when you need to know why the brand is or isn’t chosen, and where to act.
How memory mapping works
A quick reaction only reaches what is on the surface. Memory mapping goes further by exploring one memory at a time.
“But if it’s in your subconscious, chances are you don’t even know why you buy the brands you do. That’s why it’s so important to delve into people’s memories, which is a completely different process. We call that memory elicitation.”
Our method, MemoryStream™, guides buyers through their memories of a brand, one answer at a time. Each recalled detail becomes a cue for the next, so the answers move past the tidy, reasonable ones and down to the associations that actually drive choice. We then measure how strongly each association is tied to the brand.
Three choices make the map useful:
- Map the competitors too. An association only matters relative to the brands you compete with. The map shows what pulls buyers to them and what holds buyers back from you.
- Map the right buyers. Map your core, the buyers you have, and your growth target, the buyers you need to win. Their networks are often different.
- Measure strength, not just presence. Two brands can share an association. The one it is more tightly tied to is the one that comes to mind.
How to read the results
A map is only useful if it changes what the team does. Read it for three decisions.
- Keep the positive associations the brand already owns, and feed them.
- Stop the negative associations, and anything that reinforces them, such as an ad, a pack change or a line.
- Add new positive associations, linked to the ones the brand already has, so they take hold faster.
“The health of a brand comes down to whether its positive associations in the brain are more vast than its competitors.”
Then put the new cues everywhere buyers meet the brand: the pack, the shelf, the site, the ads and the sales conversation. Associations shift before stated scores do, so measure them again to see whether the change is taking hold. See which brand health metrics predict sales for how the two kinds of measure work together.
