How effective is your branding?

Internal, communications and external brand audits help determine how effective your branding activities have been. More important, brand audits show what your branding must accomplish in the future.

Audits, which offer qualitative brand snapshots, have multiple advantages. They benchmark the current brand position by showing how internal and external audiences perceive your offerings and the strengths and weaknesses of your service, quality and marketing. Brand audits also unify an organization. Too often, many in your company have a different definition or perception of what your brand stands for. A brand audit can illustrate those differences, providing a roadmap to building a consistent, universally accepted vision of the brand. This vision is critical to ensure that everyone is marching to the beat of the same branding drum. Finally, brand audits can help eliminate the all-too-common disconnect between what companies believe their brand to be and what customers perceive it to be.

Internal Brand Audit

An internal brand audit takes the brand temperature from corporate executives and other personnel. One-on-one confidential interviews probe to determine each manager's perceptions of the brand, branding goals, evaluation of past branding activities, knowledge of key corporate or brand messages and other key points. Typical questions:

• What is a corporate core value?
  
• Who are the key stakeholders
  
• Describe a typical customer and his requirements?
  
• What past marketing activity has had the greatest impact? What past marketing activity has had the least impact?
  
• If you could design the brand experience from scratch, what would you offer to customers?

Each interview takes about 20 minutes, but they can last as long as an hour. On average, 5-15 executives and managers are interviewed as well as front-line service personnel. Questions can be prepared beforehand, but the most valuable insights often result from free-ranging discussions on the brand.

As an independent third-party, FusionBrand also offers the credibility, sensitivity and anonymity needed to generate insightful and frank comments about corporate branding. Our skilled interviewers gently probe beneath the glossy veneer of corporate clichés to determine employee perceptions of what the brand is and what it must be. The results are carefully analyzed, and can be presented in a report or during a branding workshop. Past clients have been surprised at how much corporate brand visions and values vary within a firm. If employees don't have a common brand view, how can customers?

An internal brand audit can also test service and responsiveness. FusionBrand will anonymously contact lead generation, service and other customer-facing activities to request material, seek support, ask for quotes, etc. Reports will analyze the responsiveness and quality of the interaction. Again, results can be surprising. When a call was placed to a phone number listed in the ad of a major telecommunications carrier, the number was out-of-service!

Communications Audit

A communications audit is especially useful for larger firms with multiple divisions or departments involved in branding activities. A communications audit looks at all the material that represents a brand - press releases, ads, brochures, Web site, logos, etc. Analysis then determines the amount of consistency and integration in appearance/design, messages and adherence to corporate standards. Ideally, a brand manual is in place to provide a benchmark.

FusionBrand will look at such issues as:

• What are the key messages? Are these consistent across all channels and media?
  
• Is there a common look-and-feel? Are corporate standards followed?
  
• How current is information?
  
• How well does the material support the brand vision and values?
  
• Are target market requirements being met?

A communications audit is usually conducted at the same time as an internal audit.

External Brand Audit

An external brand audit looks at how various stakeholders (or, more accurately, constituencies) view the brand. Such constituencies include customers, "lost" customers, prospects, media, distributors/retailers, regulatory bodies and suppliers. Sometimes, an external brand audit is combined with a loss analysis to determine why a contract or other business went to a competitor.

These constituencies are asked about their perceptions of the brand, based on their experiences, exposure to advertising/PR/referrals, corporate relationships, etc. Sample questions include:

• What does the brand mean to you?
  
• Why did you buy the first time?
  
• Why will (or won't) you buy again?
  
• How useful and relevant are corporate communications?
  
• How responsive is support?
  
• How do competitors compare?

The number involved in external brand audits can vary greatly according to time, cost or other constraints. Even as few as 5-10 interviews can produce insights. In general, however, 3-8 interviews should be conducted among each constituency. Names and contact information are provided by the client. Each anonymous interview takes about 20 minutes.

Before conducting an external brand audit, FusionBrand personnel become familiar with client brand imperatives, products and other issues. Based on this knowledge, FusionBrand uses superb questioning, listening and analytical skills to determine brand perceptions and experiences.

Brand audits form the foundation of great brands

"The organization is the brand."

That is true only if employees and managers share the same vision and commitment to the brand. By illuminating the differences in brand understanding, an internal brand audit is the first step toward unifying an organization and enabling it to do business on customer terms.

In today's customer economy, customers define brands based on their emotional, experiential and economic interactions. To optimize those interactions, it is critical to first know how customers, prospects, media and others view the brand. What are the strengths and weaknesses? How loyal are customers? Are communications relevant? Once these and other issues are revealed by a brand audit, then the organization can build a great brand, able to do business profitably on customer terms.

Results of brand audits must not only be shared as widely as possible but also incorporated into internal and external branding efforts, including employee communications, advertising and PR. It is especially important to use the results to drive changes in sales, service, support and other customer-facing activities. Finally, remember to use brand audits as guidelines for improvement, not as a stick for punishment.

Internal, external and communications audits should be held every 1-2 years to evaluate progress toward branding goals.

For more information on internal, communications and external brand audits, contact FusionBrand today.