The biscuit test85

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THE BISCUIT TEST

If your brand were a biscuit, what kind of biscuit would it be?

Does that seem like a silly question? Or perhaps you have tried it before and found that it works. Often your customers and your staff fi nd it diffi cult to think of words to encapsulate what your brand stands for. But they might be able to identify your brand as Chocolate Hobnob, completely different from your competitor’s brand, which they see as Custard Cream. Using metaphors can help people defi ne brand identity. People generally fi nd it a lot easier to make comparisons than defi ne concepts. So they can easily identify one brand as a Chocolate Hobnob, and another as a Custard Cream.

The idea When your brand message doesn’t seem to be making it through to your own staff or to your customers, one way to investigate this is to help people describe the way they see your brand. Often, the directors will have one vision of the brand, while the staff have a completely different idea. Customers will have their own ideas.

The biscuit test is a way to compare the differences. You can do the same exercise, asking what car would be closest to your brand, or which magazine, or dog. It can be a really helpful way to shed light on the differences between people’s perceptions. Once you’ve

identifi ed the differences, you can fi nd out what caused them, then work on your brand identity to minimise them.

In practice • Once they’ve got over their scepticism, people usually fi nd this exercise entertaining and will do their best to think of an accurate answer. It doesn’t matter if they’d done it before. • Even the sceptics will explain why they think it’s silly, and give you the opportunity to fi nd out what they think in different ways. • A strong brand depends on the people inside having a similar view the people outside the organisation. Use the biscuit test to measure the gap, then use your discoveries to narrow it.