Essay: Analyzing Telstra NBN To Solve Brand Problems" (70 Characters)

Introduce your chosen brand, give its market description, identify an existing brand problem related to the brand equity theory, and recommend ways for the client firm for a way forward to manage the brand. This assignment requires you to analyse the brand, and then give your strategic recommendations for the brand. In your analysis and recommendations, you are expected to make good use of the brand management theories and processes we cover in this unit.
 

The brand name of a company can be stated to have a life of its own and has a profound impact on the performance of an organization. The primary aim of the given report is to identify a brand problem associated with the chosen company Telstra and use the Keller’s model available in order to ensure that the company can solve the problems associated. Certain recommendations for the same will also be provided.

The brand chosen for the report is the Telstra nbn. The Telstra is a leading organization which is involved in the technological and telecommunications segment and forms one of the largest companies as present in the designated market. The operations of the firm are quite large in number with the organization providing approximately 17.6 million mobile services and 5.1 million voice services along with 3 million broadband services (Solomon et al. 2014). The company is often considered to be one of the fastest national mobile networks in India. The firm has a presence in more than 20 countries. Telstra is often considered to be the favourite nbn provider of Australia (Telstra.com.au. 2018). The nbn network primarily deals with the broadband connection and it is owned by the network government. The nbn shall provide the customer with reliable and smart connection, it shall make use of unrivalled entertainment and shall be safe and secure. (Refer to Appendix 1 and 2).

The telecommunications service in Australia was first controlled by the Postmaster General department and was later administered by each colony. Later on it was taken over by the Australian Telecommunications Corporation which was later named the Australian and overseas Telecommunications Corporation. The AOTC was later renamed as the Telstra organization which was derived from Tel as in Telecom and Stra as in Australia in the year 1995. The company has been combatting against competition since the year 1990s and since then it has been performing well.

The different brand elements of the organization is as follows:

The taget audiences are the government, schools, households and offices.

The brand promises to provided uninterrupted services

The brand has high values of integrity

The brand is often perceived as the best telecom brand in the country.

The brand voice is quite subtle in nature (Jarzabkowski & Kaplan 2015, p. 537-558).

The brand has positioned itself as one of the best brands in Australia.

Market Description  

In general the fixed line telephonic traffic has been declining considerably whereby the mobile brand market has been growing continuously. The fixed line broadband services as provided by the companies has also been falling considerably as the National Broadband Network has become increasingly popular and used widely with emphasis of VDSL and Fibre to the Node. The growth of the mobile subscriber has been driven by population growth and the competition as present in the industry can be stated to be as cut throat (Telstra.com.au. 2018). The other sources for revenue in the given telecom industry would comprise of broadband, data and IP access as well as business services with cloud computing and other related facilities. Within the existent market, there has been a shift in the market to the use of fibre networks as the NBN has been developing considerably (Crowdsupport.telstra.com.au. 2018).  The key developments which take place in the Australian market can be given as follows:

• The mobile broadband market has been growing considerably.
• The second tier market has been growing strongly.
• The growth in the broadband sector is currently quite low
• NBN has been accelerating in the given trend.
• The different competitors as present in the market are SingTel, VHA, Optus, Hutchison Australia, Virgin Mobile, Foxtel, Vodafone and other firms. (Refer to Appendix 3)

Market Description

The primary target market for the brand, as stated previously are the different individuals who enjoy accessing the internet wirelessly and enjoy their connections to be made faster. Moreover, it also comprises of those audiences like Government, Organizations, schools and hospitals

According to Rosenbaum-Elliott, Percy & Pervan (2015), the brand image of Telstra has been very poor in nature. The company has been highly popular for providing poor customer quality services to the different members of the society and moreover, when the customers tend to complain to this on social media platforms or the customer service in general, they do not get any proper response in return which further leads to a damage on the brand image (Crowdsupport.telstra.com.au. 2018). There have been several instances whereby the entire NBN bundle of the customers have been missing and in response when the customers have contacted the customer service, there has been no response on the side of the different customers. Hence, the main rand problem associated with the Telstra NBN is that the perception of the company in the eyes of the customers is highly poor in nature. Moreover, although the NBN service having been provided by the company, is exceptional but the customers are having trust issues with the brand and thus their negative feelings towards the brand bounds to foster a poor sales for the organization. Moreover, if the perception of the brand is so poor, it will have a long impact on the growth of the brand. Hence, the following section will identify the Keller brand and understand the manner in which the brand problem of negative feelings can be examined. 

In order to examine the problem which is being faced by the Telstra NBN, the theory which will be used to understand the brand problem is the Keller` model of Brand equity. The Keller`s model of brand equity is popularly also known as the CBBE Model which is an acronym for the Customer based brand equity Model (Keller 2013). The Customer based brand equity pyramid helps to understand how the brand equity can be built by a simple understanding of the customers and how an organization needs to build effective strategies accordingly.  

The brand identity can be described as the manner in which the customers generally look up to the brand and the manner in which the different brands are distinguished (Hubbard, Rice & Galvin 2014).  Hence, all the brands need to ensure that they build a specific brand identity. In this reference, it can be stated that, Telstra NBN needs to ensure that the base of the model is strong in order to succeed with a positive brand image with the consumers. Hence, for this reason, since many consumers are not aware of the real brand identity of Telstra NBN, due to a lack of awareness, they tend to have a poor perception of the brand.

Brand Problem of Telstra NBN

This level answers the question about the meaning of the brand. Once a consumer becomes aware about a certain brand then, that customer would like to gain a more thorough perception of the brand in order to understand whether the brand is reliable or not. In this aspect the information important to them may comprise of details like the reliability, customer service of the brand and its use over a long period of time (Keller 2013). This level is divided into two parts which are the brand performance and the brand imagery.

The brand performance aspect is quite important to the different consumers and thus for this reason, Telstra NBN needs to ensure that it performs well. However, this is not the case, there have been various consumer complaints with respect to the performance of the brand and hence, Telstra NBN has not been performing well in that context. The brand has been providing interrupted services for a long period now (Telstra.com.au. 2018). Hence, the product reliability aspect and customer service are quite low because of which it can be state that the brand performance of Telstra is quite poor. The second part of the Brand meaning is the brand imagery. This aspect talks about the image of the brand in the eyes of the customers. In this aspect it can be stated that Telstra NBN has a rather poor brand image in the eyes of the customers resulting from the poor brand performance in terms of customer service and the product reliability. 

In this level, the feelings of the customers towards the brand are assessed. This is highly related to the performance of the brand in the sense that if the performance of the brand is adequate than the feelings which the customer has towards a brand will be positive in nature. In this case it can be stated that due to the poor performance of the Telstra NBN in terms of aspects like customer service and the reliability, the brand response of the customers towards Telstra NBN is very poor. However, Keller differentiates between two aspects which are feelings and judgements. In this aspect, it can be stated that in the case of Telstra NBN, the customer`s Response towards the brand can be rather defined as judgements rather than brand feelings because in case of the company, the customers have experienced the brand but have found it difficult to accept it due to the poor performance and in such a case, it will be difficult for Telstra to build the brand equity (Heding, Knudtzen & Bjerre 2015). To improve this, the brand needs to maintain a balance between the judgements and the feelings.

Keller's Model of Brand Equity

There are very few brands who are able to reach the given level. In this step there exists a strong connection between the brand and the customer. The different factors for this level are factors like Behaviour, Values, connection and engagement of the customers (Keller 2013). Unfortunately, Telstra NBN has not reached this stage yet, however, in order to improve upon the poor brand image in the eyes of the customer problem, it needs to ensure that it engages effectively with the consumers to improve this problem. (Refer to Appendix 4).

The brand image holds utmost importance when an organization is looking out to expand in the domain of business. Poor brand performance can hold the performance of an organization and thereby lead to various problems in the future. Given below are certain was which have been suggested to improve the brand performance of an organization.

The understanding of the audience perception forms a critical aspect of the brand performance (Santos-Vijande et al. 2013, p.148-157). It is very important for any organization which operates in the business environment to consider its customer base before it tends to make any changes to its brand. 

In order to improve the brand performance, it is very important for any company to ensure that it uses various Brand performance metrics in order to track the stated performance. The four major brand performance metrics which can be essentially used by Telstra NBN are as follows:

• Revenue measurement: The revenue of the organization can be measured effectively as a sign of good brand performance (Harrison & John 2013).
• Alexa global rank or Klout score: The Alexa global rank is a tool which can be used by an organization to understand how well the website has been performing. Moreover, the Klout score also serves as a measure for an organization to understand the influence of the company in social media.
• Managing web visibility with SEO metrics: The different search engine optimization metrics can be used to understand the performance.
• Using social media popularity as a brand metrics: Moreover, the popularity on social media can also be understood to be a powerful tool which can be used to measure the performance of an organization with respect to its brand (Gereffi & Fernandez-Stark 2016).
• Using marketing tools

Various marketing tools can be used by the Telstra NBN in order to gain success with respect to the brand performance. These tools can be tools like Blogging, Search engine marketing, Web design and structure, Email marketing, Public relations, Personalisation and segmentation along with Analytics (Jugenheimer, Sheehan & Kelley 2015).

The company needs to ensure that it invests in the right kind of marketing programs which matches the trends of its target market.

The organization needs to ensure that it successfully provides user friendly experience to the customers whereby the different customer requirements are adequately met with. This will ensure that the firm is popular among the large mass.

The customer service aspect of Telstra is very poor and has received various complaints (Frynas & Mellahi 2015). This has been the main reason behind the poor performance of the brand and thus this needs to be improved.

Along with the above stated measures, it is also very important for Telstra NBN to ensure that it is consistence in nature. This means that it is required to ensure that it is able to provide similar service throughout the year.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the given analysis done on the brand Telstra NBN, it can be stated that the brand of a company forms an essential aspect of its entity and any organization which aims to grow in the complex business environment needs to ensure that the different customers have a positive brand experience. The report laid down the different perceptions which the customers possessed by the Telstra NBN brand and compared it with the help of the Keller Theory and recommended ways to improve this. 

References

Crowdsupport.telstra.com.au. 2018.  Billing Payments. online] Available at: https://crowdsupport.telstra.com.au/t5/Billing-Payments/BAD-CUSTOMER-SERVICE-FROM-TELSTRA/td-p/654363 [Accessed 05 Sept. 2018].

Crowdsupport.telstra.com.au. 2018. Websites Telstra. [online] Available at: https://crowdsupport.telstra.com.au/t5/Websites-Telstra-24x7-My-Account/Telstra-s-bad-customer-service/td-p/645862 [Accessed 05 Sept. 2018].

Frynas, J.G. & Mellahi, K., 2015. Global strategic management. Oxford University Press, USA.

Gereffi, G. & Fernandez-Stark, K., 2016. Global value chain analysis: a primer.

Harrison, J.S. & John, C.H.S., 2013. Foundations in strategic management. Cengage Learning.

Heding, T., Knudtzen, C.F. & Bjerre, M., 2015. Brand management: Research, theory and practice. Routledge.

Hubbard, G., Rice, J. & Galvin, P., 2014. Strategic management. Pearson Australia.

Jarzabkowski, P. & Kaplan, S., 2015. Strategy tools?in?use: A framework for understanding “technologies of rationality” in practice. Strategic Management Journal, 36(4), pp.537-558.

Jugenheimer, D.W., Sheehan, K. & Kelley, L.D., 2015. Advertising media planning: a brand management approach. Routledge.

Keller, K., 2013. Strategic brand management: Global edition. Pearson Higher Ed.

Rosenbaum-Elliott, R., Percy, L. & Pervan, S., 2015. Strategic brand management. Oxford University Press, USA.

Santos-Vijande, M.L., del Río-Lanza, A.B., Suárez-Álvarez, L. & Díaz-Martín, A.M., 2013. The brand management system and service firm competitiveness. Journal of Business Research, 66(2), pp.148-157.

Solomon, M.R., Dahl, D.W., White, K., Zaichkowsky, J.L. &  Polegato, R., 2014. Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). London: Pearson.

Telstra.com.au. 2018. Broadband. [online] Available at:  https://www.telstra.com.au/broadband/nbn [Accessed 05 Sept. 2018].

Telstra.com.au. 2018. Support . [online] Available at: https://www.telstra.com.au/support/category/broadband/nbn/what-is-the-difference-between-the-nbn-co-and-telstra [Accessed 05 Sept. 2018].

Telstra.com.au. 2018. Telstra - Our Company. [online] Available at: https://www.telstra.com.au/aboutus/our-company [Accessed 05 Sept. 2018].