The Brand Audit
Brand Audit measures brand strength
As part of our standard rebranding process, Stealing Share conducts a comprehensive brand audit. It is an analysis that examines where your brand stands now. And what it does going forward.
We also conduct brand audits for companies as a standalone exercise to keep the brand relevant, checking for brand drift (the over-complication of marketing influences on a brand message).
Call us for the Brand Audit. It is a critical view of the current state of your brand
Many companies experience brand drift.
The most important message, along with the singularities of tone and look, can be lost among the increasing flow of less meaningful messages. Brand drift most often happens when product benefits or table stakes of the category overtake the brand message.
Companies can backslide, and that is dangerous to a brand’s impact.
The Brand Audit examines every avenue of your brand communication. From printed materials to online messaging to advertising to public relations, and much more.
The goal is to find where problems exist within your brand, then find ways to fix them.
We rate your brand’s performance on a scale of one to five (one being unsatisfactory and five being excellent).
We identify and measure the nine characteristics that are important to a brand’s health and persuasive ability.
The Brand Audit characteristics
1) Meaning & Direction (How the brand is defined in the mindset of the customer)
2) Positioning (The space a brand owns in a prospective patient’s
mind that sets it apart from competitors. And explains why and when it should be their preferred choice)
3) Differentiation (The perception on the part of the target audience that brands and their products and services are different from those of competitors)
4) Relevance (How vital a brand is to its target audience, based on the delivery of perceived functional and emotional benefits)
5) Consistency (The uniformity of all the messages conveyed about a brand) This includes attitude and tone, logo, theme line, taglines, signage, signature systems, press releases, advertising and marketing, social media, and internal communications.)
6) Brand-Product Relationship (The real relationship between the brand and the product value represented by the brand. The product must be meaningful and make sense from the brand’s perspective.)
7) Equity Markers (A brand’s vantage points and points of differentiation. A tangible element representing the brand and when seen, heard, or experienced reflects the brand favorably.)
8) Coherent Management (Brand management ensures all contact points, marketing, HR, locations, and external communications are adhering to brand standards charter.)
9) Brand Equity (The practice of periodic market studies designed to measure brand meanings and associations to ensure continued market growth.)
A brand audit is actionable
Because our work is actionable, we don’t leave you with just a list of problems.
We give you the strategies and tactics that lift all those characteristics to a 5 rating.
Allowing your brand to work harder for you and creating preference beyond the specific category benefits remains our goal.
As a result, when we finish auditing your brand, we don’t simply identify problems, but we suggest the means to correct all the issues.
When is the right time to request a brand audit? We recommend that every brand
has one every two years. The old rule of thumb of every five years is outdated. The markets are changing faster, and competition for brand space is increasing.
The process takes four weeks, and the final presentation is in-depth and illuminating.
The entire process begins with an exploration of the competitive set. That requires the strategist to research your space, identify all the competitors and map their position and brand promise.
With this competitive exploration, the valuable real-estate that offers the most significant opportunity for growth is evident.