The brand strategy toolkit: The Kano Model

Developed in 1984 by Japanese Professor Noriaki Kano, The Kano Model classifies the features of a brand experience into five categories, depending on their ability to drive customer satisfaction.

Developed in 1984 by Japanese Professor Noriaki Kano, The Kano Model is one of the more obscure tools I tend to use. Some of the strategists I’ve worked with know about it, but few have found a practical use for it. Personally, I love it and think it’s one of the most important things you need to have in your head if you ever find yourself looking down a list of variables ranked by importance.

The Kano Model builds on the work of American occupational psychologist Frederick Herzberg, who in 1959 studied how 200 accountants and engineers felt about their...

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands