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BRAND AUDIT Do it regularly ! Has Kellogg’s Cornflakes increased its household penetration ? Has the awareness of ‘Airtel’ gone up ? Is ‘Intel’ the brand increasing its perception amongst new computer users ? Is ‘Ghari’ detergent increasing its physical distribution spread from North to other parts of the country. After growing positively, what can be the future growth map of Ujala? How is the relationship between Rasna and its target audience developing after the new campaign ? These and many more such questions would come up in the life of a brand. Would you also not like to know the health of your brand through a regular Brand Health checkup? I would recommend that you should regularly do a marketing audit of your brand so that you could make the brand healthy and strong. I would recommend that a thorough Brand Marketing Audit be done in the following way, which I have developed. I call this a Brand Marketing Audit process. The components of my Brand Marketing Audit process are many. Let me share them with you. They are Samsika Sales Strategy Probe™, Samsika Brand Scan™, Samsika Product Portfolio X-Ray™, Samsika Sales & marketing Organisation & Structure Examination™, Samsika Advertising & Promotion Diagnosis™, Samsika Distribution & Channel Partner Evaluation™, Samsika Consumer Behaviour Analysis ™. Finally, after this Brand Marketing Audit is completed a Brand Health Report is prepared. The third quarter of the year 2008 – 2009 has started. It is important that there be a marketing audit done on an ongoing basis in every marketing organisation so as to evaluate and assess the performance on all parameters. The timing of this article in the first week of November 2008 is specially significant because of the quarter review to be done in most Indian and multinational companies in India. The review is an important checkpoint. What is marketing audit? Why is it that I strongly recommend that this audit be conducted every quarter as well as annually. Marketing audit is the process whereby a thorough evaluation and assessment is done of all elements of marketing versus the objectives and goals and targets set not only in terms of sales figures but also in parameters like advertising to sales ratio, percentage of awareness achieved or percentage of household penetration or even the performance of the sales force or promotional programs over the quarter. Qualitatively too, elements like brand personality, the health of the brand and various other parameters are audited. Further, there is a process audit as well as a strategy audit which brings out whether the marketing task being carried out is in the right direction. The major components of the marketing audit are done in sequence which obviously starts from consumer behaviour. The first element of the audit is related to the fact whether the company knows who its customer is, why is it that he buys the company’s products and services, where and how does the consumer use the company’s products, and similar behavioural patterns of the target consumer. After the consumer behaviour audit, it is important to look at specific elements related to customer segmentation as well as audit of target audience selection. This is important because even if you have the right product and communication, but have targeted all the wrong audiences you would not have achieved the desired results. Further, segmentation needs to be clear and defined and its basis chosen well, whether it be usage segmentation or through psychographics or benefit segmentation. The next element of marketing audit is of course related to the main strategic ingredients of a brand – the positioning strategy. After the segmentation audit it is important to evaluate the positioning stance of the brand and its relevance in the current context as well as versus competition. This is crucial because consumers change and brands must have a relevant and contemporary positioning to increase the life of the brand. After the strategic part of the segmentation and positioning audit is completed it is important to start looking at each element of the marketing mix. The first and foremost audit is product portfolio audit, which is to assess the correctness of the product in range and decide to add or prune products, sizes or variants. Following this it is important to do a pricing audit right across the consumer price to the trade price and regularly monitor its impact on sales, market share and profits and check if you are available at appropriate price points. Following this, there are a series of audits done for product portfolio for existing products, pricing, customer service, distribution sales, marketing research, people, physical appearances, ambience and processes. This detailed analysis, though extremely painful is highly useful to measure the health of the brand. It is like a quarterly medical check up of the brand. The next stage is to look at a detailed audit of the communication strategy. This is significant because the advertising strategy including creative writing and media needs to be audited because large sums of money get to be effectively used or wasted if not handled well and as per strategy. Following this is the communication mix audit which is an audit of the advertising strategy, personal selling strategy, public relation strategy, sales promotion strategy, perception strategy, relationship strategy, direct marketing strategy and event marketing strategy. Tel: (022) 2847 7700/7701 (022) 2847 0214 / 15Fax: 022 2847 7699 E-mail : jkapoor@samsika.com Copyright © 2006, All rights reserved with Jagdeep Kapoor – Chairman & Managing Director, Samsika Marketing Consultants Pvt. Ltd. No part of this document may be modified, reproduced, stored, deleted or introduced in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (Electronic, Mechanical, Photocopying, Recording or Otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of the document. |
