Brand Science
Brand science is the evidence-based study into how brands exist in the world, grounding creative in proven consumer research.
What is brand science?
Brand science refers to the evidence-based research into how branding works in the real world. The term is commonly associated with the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute's work on consumer behaviour and market structure.
Its purpose is to test brand decisions against real data rather than convention or opinion, covering everything from how memorable a brand's assets actually are to how new customers are won in the first place.
Brand science doesn't replace taste or creative instinct, but it does give teams something firmer to stand on, grounding creative decisions in proven insight into how brands grow.
What does Brand Science cover?
The discipline spans a number of research-backed principles, with the following examples being some of the most popular.
Mental Availability
How easily a brand comes to mind in a relevant buying situation.
Physical Availability
How easy a brand is to find and buy, wherever a customer looks.
Double Jeopardy Law
The observed pattern where smaller brands have both fewer buyers and lower loyalty than larger ones.
Category Entry Points
The specific situations and needs that trigger a customer to think of a category in the first place.
Brand Salience
How prominently a brand comes to mind when compared to its competitors.
Market Penetration
The proportion of a category's audience that a brand has won over.
Distinctive Assets (Science)
The evidence-based case for why ownable, recognisable assets drive real brand growth.
How brand science works in practice: Jupi
As an emerging AI operating system helping businesses strengthen their decision-making, Jupi launched into a category with little existing conventions.
That blank slate was an opportunity to build a brand with the kind of distinctive brand assets that could steal market share. If those terms all sound a little sciencey, the truth is that they're actually simple, just like Jupi's OS. Leaning into that idea, we set out to build a brand that made decision-making surreally simple.
Jupi
Look up 'distinctive brand assets' in the dictionary and you'll find Jupi's magritte-esque illustration style, bold enough to cut through the AI category's sea of sameness.
Mental availability? Try forgetting the brand's logo: Rodin's thinker, standing up. And as for market penetration, how about a decisive victory over the competition, including a +17.4k% increase in site visits. It all adds up to a brand that makes creativity feel like an exact science.
Outcome: A brand designed to cut through the noise of both bureaucracy and category norms, leading to a 12.4% increase in unique site visitors.
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We zero in on the one thing only your brand can claim, then dial it up until it’s impossible to ignore.
