Brand perception survey template and questions
How is your brand perceived?
A brand perception survey asks people what they think and feel about your brand, and whether that matches what you intend. The Great Question template has eight questions: how familiar people are with the brand, what comes to mind, which words they associate with it, how they would describe it, where they heard of it, their last experience, and whether they would recommend it. Run it before a rebrand or campaign as a baseline, and again afterwards.
Questions it can answer
- What do people think of our brand?
- Are we evoking the right emotions?
- Do people understand/remember our values?
What is a brand perception survey?
Brand perception surveys explore how a brand is perceived by the target audience. These surveys are great at evaluating whether the messaging, values and overall perception of a brand are being communicated effectively. Continuously running brand perception surveys enable shifts or changes to be identified early.
Related guide: For sampling and analysis across survey types, see our survey research guide.
Do it faster with a Claude skill: Survey designer. Builds a first draft of this study in Claude that you can edit before you send it.
The questions in this template
These are the questions in the Great Question brand perception survey template. Replace the text in angle brackets with your own.
How familiar are you with <insert brand name>?
Single Select
- Extremely familiar
- Very familiar
- Somewhat familiar
- Not very familiar
- Not at all familiar
When you first think of <insert brand name> what comes to mind?
Short Text
Which of the below phrases would you associate with <insert brand name>?
Multi Select
- Brand value 1
- Brand value 2
- Brand value 3
- None
How would you describe <insert brand name> to a friend?
Short Text
Where have you heard about <insert brand name>?
Multi Select
- Social media
- Online search
- Events
- TV
- Billboards
- Friends, family or colleagues
How would you describe your last experience with <insert brand name>?
Long Text
How likely are you to recommend <insert organization / product / service> to a friend or colleague?
Linear Scale
Not at all likelyExtremely likely
Why did you give that score?
Long Text
Questions you might add
These are our suggestions, not part of the Great Question template. Add them only if you will use the answers.
Overall, what is your impression of [Brand]? 5-point scale: Very negative to Very positive.
Compared with others you know in [category], how does [Brand] compare? 5-point scale: Much worse to Much better.
Which of these brands is the most [attribute]? Single choice, competitor list. Repeat for your two or three priority attributes.
How to run it
Who to ask. Decide whether you are measuring customers, your wider target market, or both, and report them separately. Customers usually rate you higher than people who have never bought from you.
Set up the template. Replace the brand values in Q3 with the words you want to be known for, plus one or two you don't (for example "expensive" or "outdated"), so the question can show a problem as well as a match. Q7 uses a different placeholder from the rest of the template; fill it with the same brand name.
When to send. Before any brand change, campaign or repositioning, to set a baseline. Then at a fixed interval, or after the change, with the same questions and a similar audience.
Sample size. About 100 responses gives roughly ±10 percentage points at 95% confidence on a single question; about 400 gives roughly ±5. Use the larger number if you will compare segments or waves.
How to analyse. Use Q1 to separate people who know you well from people who barely know you, and read the other answers for each group. Code the open answers from Q2, Q4 and Q6 into themes and count them; this is often the most useful output. For Q3, set your intended words beside the ones people actually choose. Q5 shows which channels people credit. Calculate a Net Promoter Score from Q7 and read the reasons in Q8.
Advantages
- Great to measure changes over time
- Good to use before changing the brand to provide a baseline
- Easy to build and share
Limitations
- Finding respondents
- Survey fatigue
- Sampling errors
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between brand awareness and brand perception?
Awareness is whether people know your brand exists. Perception is what they think of it once they do. Measure awareness first; perception questions only make sense for people who have heard of you.
What questions should a brand perception survey include?
How familiar people are with the brand, what first comes to mind, which words they associate with it, how they would describe it to a friend, where they have heard of it, their last experience and whether they would recommend it. This template asks all of these in eight questions.
How often should I run a brand perception survey?
Before any major brand change as a baseline, then once or twice a year, or after the change. Keep the wording identical so the results are comparable.