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From sponsoring athletes to unwavering commitment to DEI. Every position creates a brand association. In this article we’ll answer the question “what is brand association” and discuss the effects of positive and negative brand associations.
In the past years companies have taken to publicly supporting things like women’s rights, trans rights, LGBTQ+ Pride and movements like Black Lives Matter to elicit consumer responses, but those aren't the only things that generate brand associations. Brand associations come from every single thing a company associates itself with— from social causes and world views to specific business practices.
It's a tricky subject to navigate, and it's only become more complicated over the past year. But before we dig into the effects brand associations can have on your business, let’s try to understand what brand associations are, and how they are created.
First, a brand association is the response, thoughts, and feelings consumers have that are related to a brand’s identity. Usually when we talk about brand identity we’ll focus on things like brand guides, tone of voice, brand assets, marketing and advertising campaigns etc.
And while these do contribute to brand associations, they only make up one type of brand associations. But it is important to understand that there are different types of brand associations that can spring from different sources.
Essentially, we can use Newton’s Third Low of Motion to understand brand associations. Every action has an equal (in size) and opposite (in direction) reaction. Meaning every interaction between a brand and the consumer will create a brand association.
When your brand is associated with something it will invariably create a response from consumers. The response can be positive or negative, and it can be a different response from different types of consumers, but it is there.
For instance, in 2023 Target removed Pride merchandise after negative reactions from an Anti-LGBTQ+ campaign.
For years companies and governments had been using LGBTQ+ support as a way to generate (mainly) positive brand associations.
But the result of removing LGBTQ+ and Pride support from stores, Target now experienced backlash as it became apparent that the past decade of Target supporting the LGBTQ+ community was little more than pinkwashing.
Another example of brand associations leading to positive and negative reactions from consumers are US retailer’s willingness (or lack thereof) to follow the current administration’s executive order on DEI hiring.
Following the decision of Target and Walmart to comply with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s memo, and pull back their DEI initiatives, both retailers saw a decrease in foot traffic.
For Target their foot traffic fell by 9% in February and 6.5% in March when compared to the previous year, and Walmart saw a 5.7% drop in February and a 3.9% drop in March.
Additionally both companies reported a loss in both website traffic and app usage during the social media driven protest “24-Hour Economic Blackout” on February 28.
While this decrease could be attributed to the economy being worse, it is interesting to note that retail chain Costco, which did not pull back their DEI initiatives, saw a 7.6% increase in foot traffic in the same period, and on February 28, their website traffic increased by 22% and their app traffic increased by 3%.
This data certainly indicates that the decision to pull back DEI or to keep it in place has affected their overall business.
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