Question

What do you see as the biggest challenges in conducting a brand audit? What steps would you take to overcome them? How do you measure rate of sale? How might you measure the effectiveness of your advertising message? How does your organization determine who is buying its products? How does a vendor either support or subvert your product's performance?

Answer 1

Ans: First of all let us understand what a brand audit is? It pertains to a detailed and comprehensive assessment of a brand and its market equity.

Many a times the understanding of the term Brand itself is not clear to many people so the feedbacks are also vague if the target audience or sample size selected is not done properly.

People may also not be aware of your brand hence the audit information/survey must be devised carefully.Timing of brand audit is critical and often ignored which may give inconsistent results.

Its really useful to conduct a brand audit not just when the sales are down but also in times of higher sales which helps to benchmark the strategies which are working and those that are not and need to be modified.

It also helps to evaluate the competitor strengths and weaknesses and to allign our own brand strategies and campaigns likewise.

I would ensure the foll steps to overcome common challenges to conduct a brand audit as shared above:-

1.Identify the right target audience and market area to do the brand audit.This should include a mix of high,medium and low salience markets.

2.Ensure that proper brand awareness campaigns are being conducted so that the customers are better informed about the brand attributes

3.Have a pre-decided frequency to conduct your brand audit so there will be a proper data consistency.(annual/half yearly/quarterly etc)

Rate of Sale is measured by subtracting the Previous Month Sales from the Current Month Sales,dividing by the Previous Months Sales and then multiplying the result by 100.

Measurement of effectiveness of Advertising Message:

Accdg to Mktg Gurus Kotler and Armstromg,2 crucial aspects to measure the impact or effectiveness of your advertising are 1)Communication Effect and 2) Sales Effect

Communication Effect involves the a) Direct Rating Method b)Portfolio Tests c)Laboratory Tests

Sales Effect Research is totally based on the Sales of the company and it involves analysing the jumps and drops in Sales and the factors responsible or the cause and the correlation with advertsing measures.

To find out who is buying the product/the target customer,regular market surveys are conducted which also analyse the buying reasons for the customers like price,packing,product benefits etc.

A vendor/s can support or subvert the products performance by the following:-

i) Inconsistencies in supply and quality of raw materials can badly impact the brand/product performance.

ii)Frequent Price Increases by vendor can also affect the final product pricing for the customer and also lead to reduced brand expenses as profitability may also reduce.

iii)A good vendor can surely enhance the brand growth efforts by the company by ensuring timely deliveries,optimum quality of materials and a steady pricing.