Brand Recognition In the abstract, recognition processes require that consumers be able to discriminate a stimulus -- a word, object, image,

etc. -- as something they have previously seen. Brand recognition relates to consumers' ability to identify the brand under a variety of circumstances and can involve identification of any of the brand elements. The most basic type of recognition procedures gives consumers a set of single items visually or orally and asks them if they thought that they had previously seen or heard these items. To provide a more sensitive test, it is often useful to include decoys or lures -items which consumers could not have possibly seen. In addition to "yes" or "no" responses, consumers also can be asked to rate how confident they are in their recognition of an item. There are also a number of additional, somewhat more subtle recognition measures that involve "perceptually degraded" versions of the brand. In some cases, the brand element may be visually masked or distorted in some way or shown for extremely brief duration. For example, brand name recognition could be tested with missing letters. These additional measures can provide more sensitive measures of recognition than simple "yes" or "no" tasks. By applying these direct and indirect measures of brand recognition, marketers can determine which brand elements exist in memory and, to some extent, the strength of their association. One advantage to brand recognition measures versus recall measures is that they can be used in any modality. For example, because brand recognition is often visual in nature, visual recognition measures can be used. It may be difficult for consumers to describe a logo or symbol in a recall task either verbally or pictorially but much easier for them to assess the same elements visually in a recognition task. Nevertheless, brand recognition measures only really provide an approximation as to potential recallability. To determine whether the brand elements will actually be recalled under various circumstances, measures of brand recall are necessary.