Marvel and DC Comics : the competition between two strong brands: Consumers perception analysis

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There are two types of customer-based brand equity: brand awareness and brand image, both belong to the very key concept of brand knowledge. A positive customer-based brand equity depends on how consumers perceive the brand. What we can all agree on is that customers will be favorable to a brand if they are for instance more or less not that sensitive to price changes, if they are willing to spend time looking across stores to buy it and on top of that if they are loyal.

As part of a brand exploratory perspective, we went on the field in Paris-La Défense, and asked random people what they thought about Marvel and DC Comics in terms of brand awareness and brand image.

You may say to yourself “What’s the point of all this?”, well let us tell you why!

For a brand, improving its brand awareness is vital. In fact, the higher the better: customers will place the brand in their consideration set that would impact their purchase choices. Similarly, a brand must be an undefeatable actor in terms of brand image to beat competition through strong, favorable and unique brand associations as Keller underlined it; this can be undertaken via attributes, benefits and attitudes/emotions. Having a solid brand identity is not enough, what matters is how the customer will perceive it.

I/ BRAND AWARENESS

Firstly, to measure Marvel and DC Comics’ brand awareness, composed of brand recall and brand recognition, we chose to ask the following questions to a sample of 10 heterogeneous people:

1) What brands in the category of comics/movies featuring superheroes do you know?

The first cited response echoes to a top of mind awareness, i.e. the highest level of brand awareness (brand recall).

The other spontaneously cited responses lie in spontaneous awareness (brand recall).

If people were unable to answer, we guided them through a second question.

Results:

Marvel wins the competition as the brand was the first cited response for 70% of the people we interviewed, so it benefits from a top of mind awareness.

Nonetheless, DC Comics benefits from a spontaneous awareness for 30% of the sample.

The results to this question were quite interesting as many people quoted DC Comics superheroes (Batman, Superman, Captain America) but could not tell us what was the brand behind them.

2) Do you know Marvel? Do you know DC Comics?

This question deals with assisted awareness (brand recognition).

If people replied “yes”, we then moved to a third and final question.

Results:

Marvel benefits from a higher assisted awareness than DC Comics as 100% of the people interviewed replied they know Marvel, and only 60% of them answered they know DC Comics. Furthermore, two respondents said that they knew DC Comics but could not tell who were the superheroes of the brand.

However, these results must be nuanced as our sample was limited and it is quite unlikely that a brand has 100% assisted awareness.

3) What products of Marvel/ DC Comics do you know?

If people were able to cite the majority of the products of the brand, we call it qualified awareness (brand recall).

Results:

Respondents answered to this question in two different ways: half of the people interviewed cited the brands products and others cited the superheroes attributed to each brand.

For those who cited the brand products, all of them told us Marvel was doing comics, movies, video games, toys, action figures and clothing. They answered the same for DC Comics, except 2 people among 5 who had no idea of which products DC Comics is producing. We noticed that comics and movies were always the first products cited, which shows a qualified awareness of the two brands.

For those who cited the superheroes, some of the respondents mix Marvel and DC Comics superheroes such as Superman, Green Lantern, Captain America and Wonderwoman.

To conclude, the answers to this questionnaire underlie the fact that Marvel benefits from a higher brand awareness than DC Comics: 70% top of mind awareness versus 30% for DC Comics, 100% assisted awareness versus 60% for DC Comics and a higher qualified awareness too.

As its brand recognition is weak, DC Comics should increase the familiarity of its products through repeat exposures in the eyes of customers. More, to reinforce its brand recall, DC Comics should work on more powerful associations and signals.

II/ THE LOVEMARKER MODEL

Secondly, to assess their brand image, we used on one hand the Lovemarker model of Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi (even tough we remain conscious that it does not perfectly fit to our audited brands) and on the other hand the process of brand associations.

Magic mirror on the wall, who is the Lovemark one of all?

We chose to interview a heterogeneous sample. We interviewed Hermine, 27, law student, Laetitia, 20, nurse’s aide, Jennifer, 25, law student, Solène, 20, nurse’s aide, Deborah, 26, student, Fabrice, 37, bank employee, Ismael, 29, auditor, Etienne, 36, real estate agent, Pascal, 33, middle-office controller, and Tom, 35, publisher.

The respondent must score at least 25 Respect points, otherwise the brand can’t even be a Lovemark.

Unfortunately and surprisingly, among 10 respondents, none attributed 25 Respect points to the two brands, meaning that we couldn’t go any further into the Lovemarker model. But, we were curious and still evaluated the sample’s opinion about Mystery, Sensuality and Intimacy (the three characteristics measuring emotional heat of a brand). Of course, neither Marvel nor DC Comics were assigned as Lovemarks…

Why? Either because the studied sample is restricted or more likely because Marvel and DC Comics are not sufficiently rooted in customers’mind.

Despite Marvel’s leadership, both brands encounter notoriety problems and have to increase their presence in the international market.

Still, we can draw the conclusion that for 8 respondents, Marvel got higher Respect points than DC. Plus, we noticed that according to Jennifer’s results, Marvel and DC Comics got equal scores. For Tom, DC Comics scored lower than Marvel. Both results are quite attention-grabbing considering customers are more aware and crazy about Marvel. But after all, that is just a trend.

III/ BRAND ASSOCIATIONS GAME

Let’s now move forward and pay a close look at the game of brand associations. You might want to have a look at their reactions and responses like if you were there, isn’t it?

Annnnnnd ACTION!

And you, did you know all those Marvel and DC Comics superheroes?

In any case, brand associations game we made raised several points:

Among the 10 people we interviewed, no one recognized DC Comics logo. However, Jason made an interesting remark: after consideration, he recognized the logo, but he told us that it was not obvious for him, even though he is a great comic reader since his childhood. But he precisely remembered the old one which was red and white.

Then, Stephanie did not know the name of Green Lantern, but she thought it was a Marvel character. So there is still this problem of confusion between Marvel and DC Comics superheroes.

Four of our respondents did not know the name of The Thing, but they knew it was a character from Fantastic Four. It means that many people are able to make the link between the comic/movie and the character.

We will conclude by a point-scoring: we showed 8 pictures of each brand to the respondents. Marvel obtained 52 good answers versus 42 for DC Comics. The leader is still the same, but DC Comics does not lag behind as its superheroes benefits from a good awareness.

Let’s end up with a word cloud, resuming what we’ve studied previously: