Applying branding principles to grow a brand assignment

Overview: 

You have recently secured your dream job working for a brand distributed in the UK (further details provided in tutorials). 

Your marketing team has no knowledge of the work of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute or the law-like patterns that underpin your knowledge of how brands grow. 

The latest survey data for the UK market provides you with a great opportunity to demonstrate how the law-like patterns can aid interpretation of brand performance and will  help to guide branding decisions in your market. 

You will need to confirm with your tutor the brand to use before beginning this task.

Part One: Brand Performance : 

Your first task is to calculate brand performance metrics for the brand and to discuss whether the brand is performing as expected in this market. Draw on a variety of sources  (industry and academic) when discussing brand performance and recent marketing efforts. 

1A. Present results in tables to visually show the brand's performance. Use the principles of data reduction to show whether law-like patterns hold in this context. Highlight priority  metrics and explain why they are more important. 

1B. Using the same data provide an example of how the survey results can be presented differently, making misinterpretation more likely by those lacking your knowledge. Explain how this could distract the team from the task of growing the brand. Provide evidence from this or other brands on efforts that may be ineffective if the objective is to grow the brand. 

Supplement survey results with other credible sources that report the latest market intelligence on the brand and its key competitors. Examples of industry sources include  IBISWorld and Euromonitor for market trends and current conditions.  

Part Two: Brand Audit : 

Draw on industry publications, such as Campaign, B&T, Advertising Age or articles from  the WARC database to critique marketing campaigns or branding efforts. The brand's  website, YouTube and social media sites should also be examined as part of the brand  audit for Part Two. 

2A. Provide a brief history of the brand; include how it is physically distributed in the UK.  Identify your brand's key competitors (these should also feature in Part One). Draw on  your audit and data analysis to justify why they are your brand's closest competitors and  discuss the effect on competition if market partitions exist. 

2B. Highlight an important piece of information to consider when making branding  decisions, e.g. is it a growing or declining market, do any brands dominate or are there any trends/government regulations to be aware of? 

2C Provide a brief overview of marketing efforts of the brand (refer to appendix for detail).  Discuss whether the current media choices are likely to reach all category users or if  content and media choices appear to be targeting specific segments. 

2D Examine brand messaging across the market for 3 brands. What do you think the key  message of advertising is and why? Do you think that message is something only that  brand could say? Explain your answer. 

2E Think about how consumers buy the category. Discuss whether the messaging of  brands is likely to be salient when buyers buy. Provide support for your argument. 

2F Provide a brief overview of the brand's physical availability, discussing all three aspects  of physical availability. Identify opportunities to help grow the brand. 

2G Provide a summary of potential Distinctive Assets for your brand (create a brand  palette for DAs). Estimate where branding elements would be positioned on the Fame/Uniqueness grid and add in elements likely to be useable or investable assets for key competitors. Briefly discuss the quality of decisions made from grids compiled from a branding audit compared with grids informed by research with category users. 

Part Three: Recommendations : 

3A: Provide a recommendation on how the brand can improve its mental  availability. Explain how this can help the brand to grow. 

3B: Provide a recommendation on how the brand can improve its physical availability. Explain how this can help the brand to grow. 

3C: Which would you prioritise? Or is there another recommendation you would make based on your brand audit? Explain your thinking. .