What Is Brand Image? Its Significance and How to Develop It

Brand image is the perception and impression that customers have of a brand, encompassing both positive and negative views formed through interactions with the brand's products, services, and marketing campaigns.

A strong and consistent brand image is essential for building customer trust and loyalty. Additionally, brand image helps differentiate your brand from competitors in the market.

Understanding and building the right brand image is crucial for any business. Read on to learn more about what is brand image, its benefits, indicators, and how to create and improve it.

What Is Brand Image?

Brand image is the result of customers’ perceptions of a company, its products, and services based on their experiences. When customers interact with your product or service, they form a perception or image in their minds.

The brand image reflects customers’ evaluations of the brand, which can be positive or negative, depending on their experiences and perceptions, whether through transactions, physical store visits, product quality, offline branding, or digital branding.

Benefits of Brand Image

Building a strong brand image provides plenty of benefits to your business. To understand further what is brand image, here are some key advantages you need to know:

• Increase Credibility: A positive image helps build trust in your industry.

• Increase Professionalism: A credible image makes your business appear more professional by consistently providing good service.

• Gain Recognition and Recommendation: Satisfied customers are more likely to give positive recognition and recommend your brand to others, increasing your business's visibility and referrals.

Brand Image vs Brand Identity, What Are the Differences?

Many people see brand image and brand identity as a similar thing, but actually, they are different in concept. Brand image includes the subjective thoughts of each individual towards a brand. Furthermore, it can change quickly and reflects the brand's values and attributes.

In contrast, brand identity involves long-term consistency and reflects the brand's credibility, trustworthiness, and quality.

Brand Image Indicators

After knowing what is brand image, along with its benefits and differences, now’s the time for its indicator. Brand image indicators measure audience perceptions of a product. According to Aaker & Biel (in Keller & Swaminathan, 2020: 239), there are three main indicators:

1.  Corporate Image

Corporate image is how customers perceive the company that produces goods or services. This includes popularity, credibility, company network, and product users.

2.  Product Image

Product image is how customers perceive the goods or services provided. This includes product attributes, customer benefits, and quality guarantees.

3.  User Image

User image is how customers perceive the people who use the goods or services. This includes the users' social status and demographics.

How to Build Brand Image

After knowing what is brand image, let’s learn how to build and improve it. Brand image is about focusing on customer satisfaction and brand uniqueness. Here are some strategies to build and improve your brand image.

1. Improve Product and Service Quality

Understand customer needs and ensure your products and services are of high quality. You can consistently provide a positive customer experience, including responsive service and a smooth purchase process.

2. Finding the USP of the Product or Service being Sold

The next step is to identify and communicate your brand's USP in every promotion. A strong USP differentiates your brand from competitors and attracts customers by highlighting added value, such as sustainability, social support, or innovation.

3. Active in Social Media

Next, you can use social media to interact with customers, provide updates, and receive feedback. Positive reviews and constructive criticism can improve your brand image. Building a social media community can also expand your reach and enhance brand loyalty.

4. Do Campaign Activities

Creating engaging and trend-relevant advertising campaigns can be a choice when it comes to building brand image. Creative and potentially viral campaigns increase brand recognition. You can focus on storytelling and strong narratives to build emotional connections with customers.

5. Regular Evaluation

Last but not least, you must regularly evaluate customer satisfaction and use the insights to refine your sales and service strategies. Involving customers in this process can boost their engagement and loyalty.

In conclusion, building and maintaining a strong brand image is an ongoing strategy requiring consistency. Businesses must continuously monitor and improve their brand image to remain relevant and effective.

Developing a consistent brand image involves creative and structured campaigns that capture customer attention. VISUWISU is ready to help enhance your branding and marketing efforts through research and production of visual assets.

Consult VISUWISU today to make your business's brand image more unique and attractive!