Brand diagnosis - audit and research

What happened to Snapple

From November 1994 to January 1997 Snapple lost $1.7 million every day equating in their brand value becoming $1.7 billion to $300 million in 27 months resulting in an overall brand value decrease of 82%.

Remember your job - follow the path

Do not rush the process. Commence with diagnosis or understanding what is going on with your brand; the marketplace and with your consumers.
Brand evaluation and analysis
Formulate brand strategy
Develop and execute tactics

Role of brand diagnosis as part of the overall branding cycle

What/who is the brand (brand identity)
Where is the brand (situation and position analysis)
Why is the brand there (diagnosis)
Where could the brand be (goals)
How can the brand get there (brand strategy and tactics)
Is the brand getting there (brand monitoring)
Goes round in a circle.

Brand audit

Keller (2013, p.293)
A brand audit is a more externally, consumer-focused exercise to assess the health of the brand. Uncover its sources of brand equity, and suggest ways to improve and leverage its brand equity.

Keller’s viewpoint on brand audit components

Brand inventory - A current, comprehensive profile of how all the products and services are marketed and branded. (Look at name; slogans; logos; characters; packaging; attributes of brand; marketing mix & marcomms materials (looking for brand consistency) and understanding competitive set).
Brand exploratory - Provide detailed information about what customers really think of the brand. Research directed to understand what consumers think and feel (review previous studies; interview internal stakeholders; qualitative research then quantitative research).

Questions to consider for brand audit process

What are the brand values, essence, tone of voice; pillars?
What do internal (employees) and external (ie customers) stakeholders think of the brand?
What is the Brand Mantra?
How is the brand positioned in the marketplace? Does it Occupy a distinct position? Are there brands we are competing directly with?
What differentiates the brand from its competitive set? is the true emotional Driver for consumption?
Are these achievable?
What are the brand objectives?
Is there a mis match between consumer and business view?
Levels of Brand awareness?

Brand diagnosis/Brand Appraisal

Parameswaran (2006, p.51)
Market analysis
Competition Analysis
Competency Analysis
Consumer Analysis
Macro socio-economic analysis

Evaluating the brands identity

Physique - Think different, logo-symbol, easy access GUI microcomputer.
Relationship - friendliness, emotional, heartfelt connection
Reflection - self enhancement, connected
Personality - cool, simplicity, innovative.
Culture - Believe in bringing change, power to people through technology, US culture.
Self-image - younger brand, fun, making customer feel special, free thinking.

Brand mantra

What does your chosen brand do? Does it execute its mantra through its products and communication etc?
Emotional modifier: How does the brand provide benefits and in what ways? Nike - authentic, mcdonalds - fun, Disney pictures - fun.
Descriptive modifier - Clarify nature of the brand. Nike - athletic, mcdonalds - folks, disney pictures - family.
Brand function - Experiences or benefits the brand provides. Nike - performance, Mcdonalds - food, Disney pictures - entertainment.

Ritson’s 2019 view on the ‘perfect diagnosis’

Discovery: Location, heritage, founders, secondary data, ethnography, loyalist research, segment groups.
Testing and measurement: Brand survey, second stage groups.
Tracking: tracking
This is ideal if you have unlimited time, resources and budget.
More realistic brand diagnosis: heritage, secondary data, netnography, loyalist research.
Perfection doesn’t exist when it comes to brand diagnosis

Investigating a brand’s heritage

Hudson (2015, p.1)
An ‘emerging’ concept within the marketing discipline, which suggests that the consumer appeal of products and services offered by older companies may be enhanced by the historical characters of their brands.

Making use of secondary data

Review everything you can get a hold of (from the website etc).
Look at the previous brand strategy.
Review third party data on the category (industry reports; YOUGOV panel data etc).
Any and all academic research.
Use Mintel!!
Netnography can provide real insight into consumer attitudes towards brands.

Research with consumers

Speak with loyalists… they will tell you WHY they love the brand.
Loyalitsts = key to sales and advocacy.
Beware of speaking with just loyalists… consider outliers and haters too. Identify what consumers dislike about your brand.
Awareness stage - top of the funnel (TOFU)
Consideration stage - middle of the funnel (MOFU)
Purchase stage - bottom of the funnel (BOFU).

Generic session

Understand category/market experience
Understand drivers and motivations
Review the main brands thought of / bought / aware etc
Identify points of parity and points of difference
Focus on your specific brand
Identify perceived positive brand associations
Identify perceived negative brand associations

Key point of brand associations

You must find the Good AND the Bad.
10 associations is an ideal number to test and track of both positive and negative associations.
Challenge is to ensure you are tracking / improving on the good associations…. And hopefully over time reducing the negative associations.

Limitations of research

Youngme Moon (2014)
The problem with asking consumers what they want is not only will they ask for things they’re not getting, but their requests will usually be driven by what they see being offered by the competition. Most people are limited in their imaginations: the new products they envision borrow heavily from those already in the marketplace. Consumers anchor too heavily on ‘what is’ to be able to imagine ‘what could be’.

Qualitative and Quantitative research

Qual - the why/exploratory - In-depth interviews, focus groups, projective technique, observe approach, netnography.
Quant - The what/confirm and measure - Survey research, quantitative structured observations, experimental research.

Qualitative research techniques

Free association
Adjective ratings and checklists
Projective techniques
Photo sorts
Bubble drawings
Story telling
Personification exercises
Role Playing
Experiential methods

Quantitative research techniques

Brand awareness
direct and indirect measures of brand recognition
aided and unaided measures of brand recall
Brand image
Open-ended and scale measures of specific brand attributes and benefits
Strength
Favourability
uniqueness
overall judgement and feelings
overall relationship measures
Intensity
Activity

Problem with traditional methodologies

Brian Millar (cited by Avery and Norton. 2014, p.3).
Focus on understanding the average experiences of average consumers
The problem with average consumer is that they’re just a bit… well… average.

Key brand health tracking areas

Romaniuk (2013, p.12)
Brand awareness - captures the degree to which consumers know a brand is a member of the category, so you can pick up when new entrants are gaining traction.
Brand positioning - captures the degree to which a brand is known for its promoted qualities, so you can identify the impact of advertising messages.
Brand salience - captures the propensity for the brand to come to mind in buying situations, so you can predict the chance the brand will be considered.
Brand attitude - captures whether consumers have strong positive or negative opinions about the brand, so you can identify any strong emotional attachments or barriers to purchase.
Distinctive assts - Captures the strength of key brand identification devices (logos, colours, taglines), so you can determine if the last campaign has helped build these.
Brand usage - Captures no of customers to help identify heavy, medium and light buyers. Helps set context for other metrics and provides insight into market structure.

Questions to consider

What is your brand's biggest vulnerability? If your key competitor had access to this analysis, what opportunities would they see?
What appears to be your brand's biggest strength? Does this present new opportunities?
What are three possible action steps that you can take to strengthen your brand?

Key takeaways

Take your time with the diagnosis. Helps build the foundations for an effective strategy.
A rushed diagnosis will lead to terrible output / poor strategy. Something you will then have to explain to your organisation/boss / the Job Centre (Perhaps).
Heritage; Secondary Data; Netnography; Loyalist research should be the bare minimum if unable to undertake comprehensive Primary Research.
A perfect brand evaluation and analysis / diagnosis doesn’t exist. Get your fingers dirty and take time but ensure you know nothing will ever be perfect.