The Marketing Bureau

If marketing is at the centre of the business universe, then the Brand is at the centre of the marketing universe.

Every customer and potential customer has a relationship with your Brand – good or bad but never indifferent. This relationship does not simply influence purchasing behaviour, it dictates it. Your Brand franchise is the sum total of every tiny “behaviour” in which your Brand engages and each of those behaviours will either add to or detract from the relationship with your customer or potential customer.

The Marketing Bureau Brand Audit sets out to uncover and assess that relationship and the behaviours that drive it. Most importantly, where there is room for improvement (and there always is) the Brand Audit will deliver detailed and actionable recommendations.

For many organisations, their Brand “Strategy” does not extend beyond its logo and other elements of its visual identity. In these organisations, that visual identify has been developed in the absence of a Brand Strategy – a lack of the “thinking” that is vital to the crafting of a Brand Story – a story that articulates the Brand’s characteristics, personality, psyche and the how it connects with the targets with whom that brand has, or wishes to have, a productive relationship.

This is highly specialist work that requires a high level of skills and expertise that we are pleased to be able to offer clients.

 Assessing a Brand's Integrity, Clarity and Consistency

The Marketing Bureau Brand Audit is a diagnostic tool that helps companies evaluate how effectively they represent and deliver their brand strategy across all points of customer (and other stakeholder) contact. It's designed to assess the brand’s character, personality, integrity, clarity and consistency.

We examine every element of your brand identity – from signage, packaging, vehicles and POS to advertising, collateral, and web – to see how they support or conflict with your predetermined positioning strategies.

 

But we don’t stop there – a Brand’s relationship with its markets and other stakeholder groups (staff, suppliers, communities etc) is driven by every behaviour in which your business engages. This needs to be understood and diagnosed across all aspects of behaviour of which traditional marketing activities are but one category.

 

At the conclusion of the Brand Audit, we report in detail on our findings as well as submit detailed, actionable recommendations to allow you to take any corrective and/or developmental action that we believe is called for.

 

Brand Audit :: Methodology & Scope

The following are typical components of a The Marketing Bureau Brand Audit. However, each Audit’s scope and methodology is dependent on carefully diagnosed client needs.

 

Strategy Review

·         Business Plans

·         Marketing Plans

·         Brand Positioning Statement

·         Brand Plans

·         Creative and/or Agency Briefs

·         Media Plans

 

Marketing Research Review

·         Brand Positioning Research

·         Brand Asset Studies

·         Brand Equity Measurement (awareness, preference, usage, value, accessibility, relevance, differentiation, vitality, emotional connection, loyalty, associations, personality)

·         Brand Extension Research

·         Product/Service Concept Testing

·         Logo Recall & Recognition Testing

 

Communications Review

·         Advertising and Promotional Materials

·         Other Brand Marketing elements (pricing, packaging, merchandising, distribution, direct marketing, sponsorships, flagship stores etc)

·         Press Kit

·         Press Releases

·         Sales Collateral Materials

·         Internal Communications

·         Business Cards, Letterheads etc

·         Website/s

·         Intranet Site

·         Employee Training Programmes

·         Employee Orientation

·         Manager Training

·         Sales Force Training

 

External Information Source Review

·         Competitors’ Press Releases, advertising and promotion

·         Industry Analyst Reports

·         Customer Comments

·         Business Partner Comments

·         Marketing Vendor Comments

 

Employee Interviews

·         Corporate Officer Interviews

·         Marketing Employee Interviews

·         Sales Force Interviews

·         Customer Service Employee Interviews

·         Front Line Customer Contact Interviews

·         General Employee Interviews

 

Human Resource Systems Review

·         Organisational Charts

·         Department Mission/Vision Statements

·         Department Objectives

·         Common Objectives

·         Recruiting Criteria

·         Individual Competency Dictionary

·         Succession Planning Criteria

·         Planning and Resource Allocation Systems/Processes

Proprietary Brand Research 

·         Brand Asset Research

·         Brand Equity Research

·         Brand Positioning Research (Qualitative and Quantitative)

Contact us to discuss your Brand Audit requirements

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