Brand Analysis
To make a brand successful today, you need to know where it stands and what makes it desirable. That’s the only path to the right decisions. This is why brand analysis is the key component of brand management. Brand analysis delivers the information necessary to build a brand-oriented awareness of the challenges, a thorough understanding of the brand, and a foundation for decision-making. Brand managers need to address numerous questions: What is the brand’s competitive environment? What are the brand’s strengths? Where are the competing brands’ weaknesses? What target group does the brand appeal to, and what are that group’s needs? Does the brand convey an added value, or is its profile fuzzy? Where does it have potential for a sharper focus? Market analysis requires reliable information about the markets, competitors, opportunities and trends — in other words, information to evaluate the position and potential development of a brand in the market. Such information is primarily obtained through market and competition studies, trend and style research and forecasting. Information is also needed about the brand’s essence and image — its identity. A brand manager needs to know the brand’s current status and personality. And in order to understand what makes the given brand desirable, it is equally important to recognize the consumer’s orientation, which dictates the dimensions of the brand image. That means analysing the brand’s impact: what ideas do consumers form of the brand? Finally, a thorough brand analysis must identify the brand’s internal image. An inward identity analysis explores how the company and its employees see their brand: their perspective is part of the complete brand image. Taken all together, the analytical information provides a basis for future positioning strategies. RED helps build these reliable foundations for branding decisions. We use market research to identify how people see the brand, and what the customers need. We hold workshops to bring to light the insiders’ view of the brand. And we examine the brand’s communications and explore its environment. This is how we lay the foundation for the right strategic decisions.