Free Reputation Research at BrandTags.net

Curious how your brand comes across to the public? Check BrandTags, a new project from communications strategist Noah Brier, who avers, “The basic idea of this site is that a brand exists entirely in people’s heads. Therefore, whatever it is they say a brand is, is what it is.”

By that measure, American Apparel is “hipster clothes” with a side of porn, Wal-Mart is big, cheap, and evil, and Ikea is also cheap, as well as “design,” “furniture,” and “Swedish.”

It’s a fun way to waste an hour. For retail marketers, it’s the world’s cheapest research tool.

Here’s how BrandTags works. The home page offers a logo and invites you to enter the first word or phrase you think of. Click on a brand to see what the world thinks of it — or guess a brand by its tags. (What’s crunchy, cheesy, and Stephen Colbert? Doritos, of course.)

For example, Staples‘ ad agency will be pleased to hear that variations on “office supplies,” “we got that,” and “that was easy” scored big, but maybe less happy to read “boring” and “overpriced.”

And no doubt they’re angsty in Austin that “Whole Paycheck” overwhelms such positive attributes as green, organic, fresh, and healthy for Whole Foods.

Tags are rolling in as the site gets links from Seth Godin, Metafilter, Twitter and Consumerist.