The key elements on an effective brand audit.

The brand audit provides a comprehensive overview of the health of a given brand. It is based on the point of view that successful brands are built from the inside out. While conventional branding research look mostly at one audience – consumers – a complete brand audit assesses relationships with all of the important stakeholders of the brand, including both internal and external audiences.

Internal Audiences

• Management
• Employees
• Sales force or sales channel

External Audiences

• Current customers
• Prospective customers
• Past customers
• Trade press
• Consumer press
• Business press
• Industry and financial analysts
• Shareholders and investors
• Business and community leaders
• Influencers and government regulators

The brand audit involves the use of both secondary and primary research, and uses both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, including interviews and online surveys.

The brand audit helps companies build their brand from the inside out.

Step One: Secondary Research

The first step is collecting all available information, research and intelligence from existing secondary sources.

Information Available from the Client

• Current business plan
• Current advertising or marketing plan
• Current public relations or public affairs plan
• Annual reports from past three years
• Marketing research from past three years
• Press releases from past three years
• Advertising or other marketing communications from past three years
• Biographies and background of key executives
• Press kit
• Sales literature (corporate and major divisions)

Information Available from Secondary Sources

• Company history
• Brands and product lines
• Recent and historical financial performance
• Sales history
• Share of market
• Share of voice
• Direct and indirect competition
• Competitive advertising
• Competitive spending
• Competitive strengths and weaknesses

Step Two: The View from the Inside Out

Many brands fail to reach their full potential because they are not fully understood or supported by important internal audiences. So before undertaking any outside marketing research with consumers, it’s critical to first look at the brand from the inside out.

The internal portion of the brand audit is accomplished by interviewing or surveying key internal constituencies: executives, managers, general employees, and sales or sales channel personnel. This investigation should include the following areas:

Company

1. How would you describe the company's mission?
2. How do your customers perceive you?
3. How do you want your customers to perceive you?
4. What makes the company/product/service truly different or unique?
5. What are your primary business objectives?
6. What are the company/product/service's strengths and weaknesses, both real and perceived?
7. What are the important opportunities for the company in the future?
8. What are the threats?
9. How has the company been performing financially?

Products or Services

1. What are the important characteristics of your products or services?
2. What are the key benefits of your products or services (rational, sensory and emotional)?
3. What are the perceived disadvantages of your products or services?
4. How does your pricing compare with competitors?
5. What new products or services are planned for the immediate future?

Focus

1. Has the company clearly identified its core competencies?
2. Based on its core competencies, does the company have a clearly defined, differentiating business focus?
3. Does the company’s business focus clearly differentiate it from the competition?

Differentiation

1. Does the brand focus on a primary point of differentiation?
2. Is the brand’s point of differentiation clearly communicated in marketing programs and materials?
3. Is the brand’s point of differentiation understood by its purchasers?
4. Do employees understand how their personal performance supports the brand’s point of differentiation?

Brand Identity

1. Do key company personnel understand the concept of branding?
2. Has the company identified the many points of contact people have with the brand?
3. Does the brand have a clear identity among its current and prospective buyers?

Customer Information

1. Who are the basic audiences you want to reach with your marketing efforts?
2. What is the prospect’s experience with and attitudes toward the product category?
3. What is the prospect’s experience with your product or service in particular?
4. What factors influence the purchase of your products or services?
5. What are the key demographic characteristics of purchasers of the brand?
6. What are the key values, attitude, and lifestyle characteristics of users of the brand?
7. Have you segmented customers into different groups that share similar characteristics?
8. What other brands do consumers use or consider using in the category?
9. Does the company have a clear understanding of which brand benefits are most important to customers?
10. To what extent does the brand meet the expectations of current and prospective customers?
11. How, and how often, is the brand used?
12. How much does the brand inspire loyalty and drive repeat purchase?

Competition

1. Who are the brand’s direct and indirect competitors?
2. What are the marketing strategies employed by the key competitors?
3. What is your position in terms of market share?
4. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your chief competitors?

Trends

1. What is the outlook for growth in the brand’s primary markets?
2. What are the potential threats or opportunities for the brand based on possible changes in the economy, changing demographics, technology, or new regulation?

Customer Service

1. How do customers rate the brand or company in the area of customer service?

Sales

1. What are your current sales and how does that compare to past years?
2. What kind of sales support or marketing materials are provided to the sales team or channel?
3. To what extent does the sales channel understand the way the company is attempting to position and sell the brand?

Marketing

1. How would you describe the company's marketing approach?
2. What are your current marketing objectives?
3. What is currently the company's biggest sales or marketing problem?
4. What market segments do you sell to (by product, demographics, geography, etc.)?
5. Beyond sales, does the company have other key marketing objectives for the brand?
6. Are the brand’s marketing objectives supported by well defined strategies and tactics?
7. Do company managers, employees, and departments understand their respective roles in accomplishing the brand’s marketing objectives?

Distribution

1. What are your channels of distribution?
2. What kinds of sales aids are used by the company?

Marketing Communications

1. What job should marketing perform for the company?
2. How should the marketing program be measured (sales, leads, awareness, attitudes, preference)?
3. How are marketing budgets set?

Research

1. Do you have any past or current research studies?
2. What information gaps do you currently have that research could help fill?

Measures of Success

1. How does the company measure success?
2. How is marketing success measured? (Sales leads, sales increase, market share, awareness, etc.) 

How Does the Company Communicate With Its Audiences?

Communicating With Customers

• Current customers
• Lost customers
• Loyal customers
• Prospective customers

Communicating With Editors

• Local business press
• National business press
• Financial press
• Trade press

Communicating With the Financial Community

• Shareholders
• Individual investors
• Institutional investors
• Analysts

Communicating With Employees

• Management
• Employees
• Labor unions
• Potential employees

Communicating With Opinion Leaders

• Business leaders
• Civic leaders
• Pressure groups

Communicating With Business Partners

• Suppliers
• Contractors and subcontractors
• Acquisition candidates

Communicating With Local Communities

• Business associations
• Civic organizations

Communicating With Regulators

• Local
• State
• Federal

Communicating With Elected Officials

• City mayors and councils
• County mayors, councils, and commissions
• State executive and legislative leaders
• State regulatory officials
• Federal legislators
• Federal regulatory officials

Step Three: The View from the Outside In

Getting the view from the outside in requires surveying current and prospective customers on the following topics:

Brand Awareness

• Unaided awareness of the brand
• Aided awareness of the brand

Brand Benefits

• Perceived functional attributes of the brand
• Perceived rational benefits of the brand
• Perceived emotional benefits of the brand
• How the brand compares to the “ideal” attributes in the category

Brand Positioning

• How customers see the brand as different from other brands

Brand Quality

• Perceived quality of the brand vs. other brands
• Perceived quality of customer service vs. other brands

Brand Preference

• Where the brand ranks in customers’ considered set (consider, reject, or neutral)
• Which brands in the category are preferred and why

Brand Usage

• Intent to use our brand vs. other brands

Brand Loyalty

• Exclusive use of the brand (vs. other brands)
• Customers referring or recommending the brand to others

Brand Touch Points

• Extent to which the brand is perceived consistently in advertising and other marketing communications
• Extent to which brand messages are consistent with customer’s experience of dealing with the company (customer service, etc.)

Brand Users

• Demographics (age, income, education, geography, etc.)
• Psychographics (values, beliefs, etc.
• Ways of segmenting current and potential markets

Step Four: Written Brand Analysis

The brand audit process concludes with the development of a written summary of the findings, including an overview of the environment, the category, the company, the brand, and the competition.

The Environment

A review of industry trends, regulatory challenges, and the general health and sustainability of the market in which the brand competes.

The Category

An overview of the broad category represented by the brand, including an assessment of where the brand fits in terms of awareness, preference, and usage.

The Brand

An assessment of the current state of the brand, its development, market penetration, identifying characteristics, and benefits to the consumer.

The Consumer

An analysis of current and potential customers, buying habits, loyalty, wants, needs, and motivations.

The Competition

A definition of direct as well as indirect competition, including relative share of voice, share of market, and competitive strengths and weaknesses.

Benefits of the Brand Audit

Every company can derive important benefits from taking a holistic look at the health and strength of their brand – from the inside and the outside – including:

Clearer focus and vision. Clarify the focus and vision of the brand from both an internal and external perspective.

Stronger competitive advantage. Better define the brand’s competitive advantages and points of difference.

Deeper customer understanding. Improve the organizations understanding of awareness, attitudes, and behavior of current and prospective patients and caregivers.

Communication with all audiences. Develop programs and approaches to communicate effectively with all important audiences of the brand, not just customers

More consistent messaging. Send a consistent message about the brand in all forms of marketing communications.

More unified brand identification. Develop a more clearly defined brand identity and enforce compliance among the brand’s operating divisions. Improved collaboration among business units. Organize the operations and marketing units of the company to work more collaboratively on marketing and branding initiatives. Better internal communication. Improve the company’s ability to keep executives and employees informed about the importance and activities of the brand.

Improved internal alignment. Provide training and encourage internal behaviors that are consistent with what the brand is trying to accomplish. More marketing accountability. Realistically define and prioritize marketing objectives and measure their accomplishment using a new set of metrics.

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