Brand Perception Survey Template
A 17-question brand perception survey that rates your brand and one named alternative on the same six attributes, item by item. Take it here, copy the questions, or open it in the editor and type your own brand names.
- 17questions
- About 4 minto complete
- 2 brandsrated on the same 6 attributes
- Attribute gaparithmetic you can do on paper
Which brand comparison can you actually run?
Four designs could compare two named brands. Three need no bought panel, and only one of those three returns a number per attribute. That one is this template.
The comparison happens inside one person. A generous rater marks both columns high and a hard one marks both low. The habit sits on both sides and drops out when you subtract, so a difference survives a small sample when an absolute score does not.
A brand tracking survey is this instrument on a clock. A brand health survey is the same items on a dashboard. Brand equity survey questions add a price premium item as a seventh attribute. All 17 are built in the free questionnaire maker already.
| Design | What the respondent does | What it needs | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attribute rating across named brands | Judges each brand on the same short list, one brand per screen | Two or three brands your buyers already know | A difference per attribute, worked out inside each respondent |
| MaxDiff | Picks the best and the worst item from small sets, over and over | At least 300 respondents in total and 200 for any subgroup you want to report, rising with the item count[1] | A ranking of how much items matter, not where a brand stands |
| A single preference pick | Chooses one brand | Nothing you do not already have | Who wins, with no reason attached |
| One open question about competitors | Types a sentence | Time to read every answer | Quotes you cannot count, compare or repeat next wave |
None of these is wrong, only aimed elsewhere. MaxDiff ranks how much items matter, not where a brand sits. Nothing in this template asks anyone to order a list or split 100 points, and an ordering question would not subtract even if you added one. Every judgement here is a rating, which is what makes it subtractable.
Published sample-size advice runs to several hundred responses a wave and assumes a bought panel.[2][3] With forty answers from your own list, the two absolute scores are worth little and the difference between them is still readable. To describe a whole category instead, use a market research survey.
The 17 brand survey questions, asked item by item
Every question, its scale, and what a poor answer tells you. Copy one block, copy all 17, or open the template and change the names.
Familiarity screen
Nobody can judge a brand they have never met. These two answers decide whose ratings you keep.
- How well do you know [YOUR BRAND]?A 1 or a 2 means everything that follows is a guess. Only people who know both brands go into either average.
- How well do you know [ALTERNATIVE A]?If most of your sample cannot place the alternative, you have no comparison yet, only people rating a name.
Your brand, six attributes
Six things you could act on this quarter, asked one per screen. The same six words go to the alternative next, or nothing subtracts.
- [YOUR BRAND] makes good quality [PRODUCTS].The attribute buyers assume you have. A low score here outranks every other gap on the page.
- [YOUR BRAND] is good value for what it costs.Value, not price. A brand can be the expensive one and still score high here.
- [YOUR BRAND] does what it says it will do.Broken promises show up here long before they show up in the open answer.
- [YOUR BRAND] is easy to deal with.Low here with a high quality score means the product is fine and the process is not.
- [YOUR BRAND] offers something I cannot get from the others.The one attribute where drawing level with the alternative is a bad result, not a neutral one.
- [YOUR BRAND] understands people like me.Low here and high everywhere else usually means you are selling to people you are not speaking to.
The named alternative, same six attributes
Word for word the same six items, asked second, one brand per screen. Change a single word and the subtraction stops meaning anything. All six are optional, so anyone who has never heard of this brand can skip them.
- [ALTERNATIVE A] makes good quality [PRODUCTS].If this beats your own quality answer, the quality argument is not yours to make this year.
- [ALTERNATIVE A] is good value for what it costs.The gap that moves fastest when either side changes a price.
- [ALTERNATIVE A] does what it says it will do.A rival ahead here is holding trust you thought you had.
- [ALTERNATIVE A] is easy to deal with.The gap small firms most often win and most often forget to say out loud.
- [ALTERNATIVE A] offers something I cannot get from the others.If they score as high as you do, neither brand is distinct and price decides.
- [ALTERNATIVE A] understands people like me.A rival ahead here is talking to your buyers better than you are.
First choice and the open answer
One outcome item the six gaps have to explain, and one open answer set before the end so people still have a reason to type.
- If you were choosing one of these today, which would you go with?The number every stakeholder asks for, and the one that explains nothing on its own.
- In your own words, why that brand and not the other?Read these before you open a chart. They name the attribute the ratings only hint at.
The closing rating
A rating is one tap, so it is the safest question to put last, and it gives one overall number to sit beside the six differences.
- Overall, I think highly of [YOUR BRAND].The summary figure people want. Report it under the gaps, never instead of them.
Four placeholders to replace before you send. [YOUR BRAND] and [ALTERNATIVE A] in every item, [PRODUCTS] in the two quality statements, and [YOUR ORGANISATION] in the first-screen text further down. The wording is ours: copy, edit and translate it, then freeze it, because a changed word ends the trend.
The ceiling on this block. Six attributes and two brands is 12 judgements. Eight and three is 24. Answers late in a questionnaire come back faster and shorter,[4] so keep attributes times brands under about 18, and cut an attribute before you add a brand.
How to work out the attribute gap
One subtraction per person per attribute. It is a spreadsheet column, not a model.
The arithmetic. For one person and one attribute, subtract their rating of the alternative from their rating of your brand. Do that six times, then average each attribute across everyone who rated both brands. Sort by the average difference and read the bottom first, because a total across six attributes hides the one that is losing. Put the count of people behind each number beside it.
| Attribute | Your brand | The alternative | Average difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quality | 4.2 | 3.7 | +0.5 |
| Value for what it costs | 3.1 | 4.0 | -0.9 |
| Does what it says | 4.0 | 3.8 | +0.2 |
| Easy to deal with | 4.3 | 3.4 | +0.9 |
| Offers something the others do not | 3.3 | 3.4 | -0.1 |
| Understands people like me | 3.6 | 3.9 | -0.3 |
Value is the loss here, by a distance. Ease is a win nobody is claiming out loud. A tie on offering something the others do not is also a loss. Split the six differences by what people picked at question 15 to see which attribute separates their choosers from yours.
How small a gap is noise. On 40 answers, one person moving an attribute by a point moves that average by 0.025. A tenth or two is not a result; the widest gap usually is. Your only reference point is your own previous wave.
Which brands to name
Two names decide whether the data is comparable. One question decides whose answers you keep.
Name the brand your buyers name, not the biggest in the category: the one people mention when they tell you no. Competitors sort into four kinds, direct, indirect, substitute and new entrant,[7] and this survey works on the first two. Two brands is the default. A third costs six more judgements and buys one column.
One filtering rule, and it is not brand by brand. Keep the people who said they know both brands, drop the rest, and write down how many that removed. Filtering brand by brand would average your two columns over different people, which is the one thing the subtraction cannot survive. If most of your sample cannot place either name, run a brand awareness survey first.
If the question is which candidate name to launch, that is a naming survey. For the alternatives in play inside a live buying window, send the buying intentions survey.
First-screen text
About this survey This survey asks the same questions about [YOUR BRAND] and [ALTERNATIVE A]. We are not connected to [ALTERNATIVE A]. We ask about both because a rating only means something next to another one. There are 17 questions and it takes about four minutes. If you have never heard of [ALTERNATIVE A], say so in the second question and skip its six ratings. [YOUR ORGANISATION] runs this survey and can see every answer. No name or email address is asked for.
What your own customer list cannot tell you
Everyone on your list picked you once. They rate you kindly and rate the alternative from the outside, often without having used it, so your column is flattered and theirs is not.
| What you might write | What your own list can carry | Write this instead |
|---|---|---|
| We score 4.2 on quality | Nothing about the category: only people who already chose you answered | Report the difference, and say who answered |
| We beat the alternative on three of six attributes | Only among people who know both brands | Print how many rated both, next to the claim |
| Perception improved since last wave | Only if the words, the brand order and the kind of list held still | Say what changed in the sample first |
| Forty percent would pick us first | Not a standing in the category | Use question 15 to explain the gaps, nothing else |
Keep the brand order fixed. Ask your brand first and the alternative second, one brand a screen, every wave. Whichever block comes first carries a small edge, so compare wave against wave and never one order against the other.
Whether the people who already chose you will do it again is a customer loyalty survey. How the money splits between you and them is a share of wallet survey.
If you need a market number, this is not the survey that gives it to you. A read on people who chose neither brand needs a sample your own list does not contain. Send it past your own list, to a partner list or a category community, and say who answered.
Brand perception survey FAQ
Can I ask about a competitor in my own survey?
Yes. You name the brands, ask the same items about each, and say on the first screen that the survey covers more than one brand.
Is this the same as measuring whether people have heard of us?
No. That is a memory question and it comes first. This survey asks people who already know both brands to judge them on the same six things.
Is brand perception the same as brand image?
In practice people use the two words for one thing. What matters is how you measure it: adjectives people volunteer cannot be subtracted, and ratings on named attributes can.
What is a good brand perception score?
There is no published one, and any table handing you a band is describing a different instrument. This template produces six differences rather than a score, on purpose, and until you have a previous wave the widest gap is the finding.
How often should we run a brand tracking survey?
Twice a year suits most businesses, plus a wave after anything that would change the answer: a price move, a launch, a rival arriving.
Perception rates a brand on attributes. A profile rates nothing and judges nobody, so the customer profile questions collect only what a reader would act on.
Methods and sources
What this template is based on
The block size and its item-by-item form follow published work on questionnaire position effects, on splitting grids and on forced choice against check-all lists.[4][5][6]
Question licensing
Nothing licensed appears. There is no rights-held scale behind this subject, so all 17 items are original and free to edit, translate and redistribute. MaxDiff is named as a method only, sourced to its vendor.[1]
Limits and disclosure
The sample-size advice quoted here is vendor guidance, not a trial result. Run on your own list, the absolute ratings describe people who already chose you, and the differences do not extend to the category. No benchmark exists for an attribute gap, so the only reference point is your own previous wave.
SuperSurvey makes the editor this template opens in and sells no respondent panel, so the sampling advice above costs us nothing to give. The template is free either way.
References
- Sawtooth Software. MaxDiff Sample Size Calculation Best Practices. Sawtooth Software, 2024. sawtoothsoftware.com
- SurveyMonkey. How to measure, understand and track brand perception. SurveyMonkey Market Research Resources. surveymonkey.com
- QuestionPro. Brand Perception Surveys: How They Improve Brand Image. QuestionPro blog. questionpro.com
- Galesic, M. and Bosnjak, M. "Effects of Questionnaire Length on Participation and Indicators of Response Quality in a Web Survey." Public Opinion Quarterly 73, no. 2 (2009). academic.oup.com
- Couper, M.P., Tourangeau, R., Conrad, F.G. and Zhang, C. "The design of grids in web surveys." Social Science Computer Review 31, no. 3 (2013). pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Lau, A. and Kennedy, C. When Online Survey Respondents Only Select Some That Apply. Pew Research Center, 2019. pewresearch.org
- Qualtrics. Competitor analysis and competitive market research. Qualtrics Experience Management. qualtrics.com
Send the brand perception survey this week
Seventeen questions, about four minutes, two brands judged on the same six attributes. Type your two brand names and share one link.
Use this template