POROROCA Releases 'BDQ® Usage Guide' to Turn 'Seen but Not Remembered' Brand Expressions into Selected Impressions

POROROCA (Headquarters: Shinjuku, Tokyo; Representative: Shojiro Okuno), a brand strategy consulting firm, has released the 'BDQ® Usage Guide,' a web resource that systematizes how to review and improve brand expressions to enhance brand awareness using the 'BDQ®' (Branding Design Quality) evaluation index.

The BDQ® Usage Guide is a practical tool for reviewing brand expressions that are 'seen but not remembered.'

A brand is not recognized just because it is visible. It only becomes a choice for customers after it has attracted attention, conveyed its meaning and impression, stayed in memory, and is recalled when needed.

However, in actual brand operation and design production, brand elements such as logos, websites, advertisements, social media, sales materials, recruiting materials, and packages are often judged with vague language like 'the impression is weak,' 'doesn't feel right,' or 'doesn't convey the message.' As a result, the visual impact differs across touchpoints, making it difficult for a consistent brand image to remain in the customer's mind.

The BDQ® Usage Guide organizes these issues along the customer's cognitive process. By finding where the recognition stops and reviewing it through six evaluation axes—Uniqueness, Consistency, Scalability, Distinctiveness, Continuity, and Associability—it connects brand expression reviews to concrete improvement perspectives rather than subjective feelings.

● What you can learn from the BDQ® Usage Guide:

1 | Understanding how brands are recognized by customers Brands are not recognized just because they are seen. A brand becomes a choice only when customers notice it, receive its meaning and impression, remember it, and recall it when necessary. The guide views brand recognition through this flow and reviews how design functions within customer cognition.

2 | Identifying where problems occur in the recognition process The reason brands are not recognized is not simply that 'the look is weak.' Problems include not being noticed, unclear messaging, inconsistent usage, lack of brand identity, misaligned impressions, or being weak when compared. The guide organizes where these issues occur in the recognition flow.

3 | Organizing issues with the 6 axes of BDQ® Recognition issues are rarely caused by a single factor. The guide uses 6 evaluation axes—Uniqueness, Consistency, Scalability, Distinctiveness, Continuity, and Associability—to convert vague problems into specific improvement perspectives.

4 | Reviewing brand touchpoints based on recognition issues After organizing issues with the BDQ® axes, the guide helps verify which touchpoints are causing the recognition bottleneck. By identifying specific issues for each touchpoint—such as logos being hard to remember or websites struggling to convey value—it leads to concrete improvements rather than 'intuitive' fixes.

5 | Improving towards a brand image that gets selected By organizing recognition issues and reviewing each touchpoint, the guide aims to improve the impression conveyed to customers. It transforms designs from 'just seen' to 'remembered, compared, and chosen.'

This approach can be applied to both reviewing existing brand images and designing new ones. For corporate public relations and brand management, it is crucial to judge whether a design conveys brand identity, maintains consistent impressions across ads and social media, and stands out when compared to competitors.

The BDQ® Usage Guide is a content resource for organizing these brand expression judgments through a common perspective, rather than leaving them to the subjective feelings of managers, production companies, or executives. For PR and brand managers, it serves as a viewpoint to share the intent of brand expressions internally and externally. For designers and directors, it translates vague feedback into concrete improvement perspectives.