Brand Audit: Analysis and Recommendations

Overview of the Brand Audit

One of the major components of this course is the brand audit. This comprises 40% of your total grade.
The objective of the brand audit is to get you to understand how to assess a brand’s source of equity and suggest ways to improve and leverage on that equity. The brand audit may be based entirely on information from public secondary sources, company websites, as well as you own professional experiences/insights. I do not necessarily expect you to conduct any primary research (e.g. interviews, surveys), although doing so might give your analysis and recommendations more credibility. Specifically, in this task, you will assess the brand planning, building, and growth of your chosen brand.

 

You will be allowed to choose any brand from the list provided for the brand audit assignment.
However, every student must focus on a different brand and brands are to be selected on a first-comefirst-serve basis (4 sections for this course). Choose your brand wisely.

 

Perspective-taking
• Ask yourself - which company/firm would you want to work for?
• Take the perspective of a brand manager at the company overseeing the brand – this task is designed for you to comprehensively understand all the aspects of that brand (auditing/due diligence).
Important Considerations for Selecting a Brand
• Some brands are multinational & span multiple countries/regions – you can choose to limit your focus to specific countries or regions (Asia) to put boundaries on your audit.
• Some are house of brands (like P&G) – it may make your task easier to pick a specific brand within the portfolio.
• Some firms on the list may have merged, be aware of M&As and what it means to the new company.

 

Areas to cover:
Part 1 – Brand Analysis:
The first element of a brand audit is a full description of the firm’s current branding programs. This involves an analysis of the firm’s brand hierarchy, brand portfolio, strategic branding alliances, current positioning in the marketplace, and how the firm is addressing branding through each of the marketing mix elements. Be sure to include brand elements (names, URLs, logos, symbols, characters, slogans, jingles, packaging, and other sensory elements).

 

Questions you may need to address:
1. What are the competitive brands?

Who are the customers? How is the market segmented and structured?
3. How would you characterize the positioning of the brand? What products are part of the brand
family? How would you analyze the brand architecture? Key brand attributes?
4. How are the brand messages communicated? What about the brand elements?
5. Brand awareness level? Consumers’ response to the brand? Perceived brand identity? How much brand resonance does your brand have? What have been the key marketing activities that have most contributed to the success of achieving its resonance and positioning?
6. Where are the greatest opportunities to further enhance that positioning? Ability to evoke strong consumers’ loyalty and response? How well has it expanded into new markets and/or channels?

 

Part 2 – Strategic Recommendations:
The second major component is your recommendations based on your Part 1 analysis. These are just
some of the questions you should consider in your recommendations:
• What do you think the brand should do to grow? Are there markets it should consider entering
or exiting?
• Should changes be made to its brand hierarchy and architecture?
• Should more effort be made to engage the consumers?
• How can it achieve a clearer positioning(s)?
• How else can they build or better manage their brand equity?
Clearly there are many more possible areas your recommendations can focus on depending on the
conclusions from your Part 1 analysis. But, remember, your recommendations should follow directly
from your analysis in Part 1