The Brand Audit service consist of two distinct parts: Brand Sprint and Brand Analysis. Before any useful branding discussions can start, it is vital to open everyone’s eyes to the position of the brand in the market. This is where the role of research and audits becomes crucial, especially if key players and senior management aren’t completely aware of the challenges they are facing.
As our knowledge of the company is limited, we simply can not risk to start without a Brand Sprint. Whether you’re starting from scratch, or looking to do a major overhaul of your brand, a brand sprint is a fantastic way to develop a clear, concise, and compelling brand position and story that will bring your team together.
Based on findings from the Brand Sprint, we carry on finding out where the brand stands (or, more importantly, doesn’t stand) in a market, with the Brand Analysis. We tackle product and marketing challenges. You need to know why you’re in business — and talk about it.
Our Brand Audit service consist of:
Brand Sprint: 20 year roadmap, What / How / Why, Top three values, Top three audiences, Personality sliders, Competitive landscape
Brand Analysis: Visual audit / Verbal audit / Behavioral audit / Competition audit / Peer audit
When a company has a strong motivation and that motivation shines through, customers buy the product. We focus on those moves that reframe customer expectations — actions that can sway the way people within or outside an organization think, choose, and behave — and create the most growth.
• Visual audit – Particularly for brands already in existence; it helps all parties to “see” where they are and to appreciate and highlight issues.
• Verbal audit – The words and phrases a brand/ company/ organization uses; these can either act as a stepping stone to improve the language used, or to trigger a complete change of narrative.
• Behavioural audit – Useful for brands interfacing directly with their consumers; this looks at how employees speak and talk and interact, including the messages and signals they give off about a brand (consciously and unconsciously).
• Competition audit – This would normally take all the factors above – visual, verbal and behavioural – across key competition.
• Peer audit – Not an audit of direct competition, but a look at the kind of organization that company might aspire to, or benchmark against, often across multiple sectors.
Brand Sprint
Business founders and / or responsible managers are faced with designing logos, creating visual identities, and naming their companies — in other words, making a lot of big decisions. Its a lot of stress and an opportunity for many mistakes, if you’re not a branding expert. That’s why we invented the Brand Sprint brand exercises.
The point of these exercises is to make the abstract idea of “our brand” into something concrete. Establish what needs your brand is addressing, what interactions it has with audiences, and what the business model, competitive landscape, and relative performance look like within this context.
After doing the exercises, the team gets a common language to describe what their company is about — and all subsequent squishy decisions about visuals, voice, and identity become way easier. And because the process is fast, you can easily involve all the people from the company who really need to be there – it takes one afternoon only!
What we will cover in this step?
– 20 year roadmap
– What / How / Why
– Top three values
– Top three audiences
– Personality sliders
– Competitive landscape
– Findings synthesis
Brand Analysis
What’s your secret sauce? What technology or approach sets you apart from the competition? The why should reflect the core reason your company exists, and it won’t change much over time. You may pivot the business, launch new products, and enter new markets, but your why remains the same. Lots of companies list their values, but very few do the hard work to reduce and prioritize. And prioritization is essential.
If you don’t investigate, immerse yourself and carry out proper research, then you won’t understand the issues. You’ll end up creating fantastic solutions – for the wrong problems. Step two can help to identify the correct problems to solve. When you really nail your brand, it’s not a fluffy veneer applied at the end. Instead, it’s everything: what you build, the way you build it, who you build it for, and how you do your work.
What we will cover in this step?
– How to audit and research where a brand sits, or could sit, in a market
– How to use simple techniques such as ‘obstacles / opportunities’ and ‘past / present / future’
– How to frame the questions you might ask internally and externally
– How to use mapping to unpick and understand a market
– How mapping and gap analysis can lead directly to great ideas and insights
– How company myths and product history can be exploited, or even created
– How consumer dissatisfaction and the identification of key problems can drive solutions
Ten brand strength factors
With the end of positioning, we believe it will be less about helping define what a business stands for, and more about determining where it should go next. Each brand consists of precisely ten strength factors:
INTERNAL FACTORS
1. CLARITY
Clarity internally about what the brand stands for in terms of its values, positioning and proposition. Clarity too about target audiences, customer insights, and drivers.
2. COMMITMENT
Internal commitment to the brand, and a belief internally in its importance. The extent to which the brand receives support in terms of time and influence.
3. GOVERNANCE
The degree to which the organization has the required skills and an operating model for the brand that enables effective and efficient deployment of the brand strategy.
4. RESPONSIVENESS
The organization’s ability to constantly evolve the brand and business in response to, or anticipation of, market changes, challenges, and opportunities.
EXTERNAL FACTORS
5. AUTHENTICITY
The brand is soundly based on an internal truth and capability. It has a defined story and a well-grounded value set. It can deliver against the (high) expectations that customers have of it.
6. RELEVANCE
The fit with customer/consumer needs, desires, and decision criteria across all relevant demographics and geographies.
7. DIFFERENTIATION
The degree to which customers/consumers perceive the brand to have a differentiated proposition and brand experience.
8. CONSISTENCY
The degree to which a brand is experienced without fail across all touch-points or formats.
9. PRESENCE
The degree to which a brand feels omnipresent and is talked about positively by consumers, customers, and opinion formers in both traditional and social media.
10. ENGAGEMENT
The degree to which customers/consumers show a deep understanding of, active participation in, and a strong sense of identification with, the brand.