A perception audit is a structured assessment of how a defined set of analysts currently describe and rate a company, conducted to establish a baseline before a program of work.
It generally involves interviewing or surveying a named analyst set on how they characterise the company's category, differentiation, credibility and competitive position.
Perception audit vs. brand perception study
A brand or market perception study surveys buyers. A perception audit surveys the people who advise buyers.
The populations are different sizes by orders of magnitude, and so are the methods: one is statistical, the other is a small number of long conversations with named individuals.
Why it matters
It separates what a company believes analysts think from what they actually say when asked directly by a neutral party.
The gap is usually larger than expected and rarely flattering, which is precisely the reason it is worth measuring before rather than after committing a year of program budget to a hypothesis.
Related: Analyst sentiment · Share of voice · Coverage map
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