1. Your Task
Your task is to develop a new/updated branding strategy for the brand you have chosen. Your recommendations will be included in a written report and must be fully justified and viable.
Both your analysis and re-launch strategy should consider the UK market only.
Choose one of the following brands, all have had a challenging year:
• Peloton
• GAP
• Pinterest
• Superdry
• Alfa Romeo
The following list might help give you some ideas to consider when analysing your chosen brand and developing a new branding strategy for it:
Brand awareness and image – are consumers sufficiently aware of the brand (and its entire product range) and do they hold strong, favourable and unique associations for it?
• Brand positioning – how is the brand currently positioned and should this position be shifted to attract a different target group?
• Secondary brand associations – could the brand benefit from association with other brands, causes, people, etc.?
• Brand elements – do the brand element require an update and if yes, how could that be achieved?
• Brand evolution over time – has the brand evolved successfully to meet market changes? Should the branding strategy be based on the brand’s heritage, or be modernised completely?
• Brand extensions – could the brand extend successfully into new categories?
• Pricing strategies and tactics – does the brand’s pricing strategy correspond to its chosen market, and does it need updating?
• Product strategies and tactics – what is the current product strategy and could it be improved (features, quality perceptions, performance etc.)?
• Channel strategies and tactics – should the brand develop better distribution policies and partners?
• Promotional strategies and tactics – what does the brand’s marketing communications strategy comprise and how could it be changed to alter consumers’ perception of the brand?
2. Assignment Structure
Your assignment should contain the following sections:
Written Report (100% of your assignment mark)
Executive Summary: This should highlight what the report is about, summarizing your analysis and your specific recommendations for the brand relaunch. Remember the executive summary is there for the busy executive who hasn’t got time to read the whole report, so it should include all important information.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Introduce your chosen brand rational for your choice of brand, and the key issues it faces along with your approach for completing this assignment.
Brand Analysis: This should be a critical evaluation of your chosen brand’s current strategy. Please do not just describe what the brand is doing – try to dig deeper. This requires you to analyse your brand, assess its current promotion and positioning, and identify potential weaknesses or why it needs updating. You should use this section to demonstrate your knowledge of brand theory by citing the work of relevant authors.
Recommended Brand Relaunch: This is an important section as you should use it to demonstrate your ability to make realistic suggestions. You should devise a detailed, coherent and viable strategy for your brand that attracts consumers’ attention, improves brand equity and has the potential to increase market share. Ask yourself: What is the overall brand message that your re-launch should convey, and how can all the different activities/measures, which you are suggesting, contribute to conveying this message?
Remember to fully justify your ideas. This means explaining not only why they are good, but also recognising any potential problems, costs or weaknesses involved. Try to be as specific as possible. If you are recommending that your brand devises a new advertising campaign, explain or illustrate the images it should portray, what the brand message is, and where the campaign should be placed. You could use this section to demonstrate your knowledge of brand theory by citing the work of relevant authors. Make sure you include explains or illustrate them with images!
Conclusion: You should use this section not only to briefly summarise your brand analysis and recommendations for its relaunch, but also to convince the reader of the quality of your ideas. Make a compelling case for your suggestions, and how your makeover strategy will enhance the brand’s equity.
Appendices (optional): This may be any material you feel would help illustrate or substantiate your analysis and recommendations. If you have collected any primary data, you need to include details here, i.e. a full presentation of results (e.g. bar or pie charts for each question), plus the questionnaire or interview guide that you have used. Do not use the appendix to try to overcome the word limit.
References: This should only include material that you have read and cited in the report. Please make sure you use academic sources (articles from academic journals or textbooks). You must follow the Harvard referencing method.
3. Advice
Remember, the power of a brand lies in the mind of the consumer – so choose a brand from the above list that appeals to you and inspires you to come up with an inventive new campaign. Be creative – you do not have to go down the ‘standard’ advertising/sales promotion route to re-create your brand. Use the images in your document to demonstrate this creativity. However, your recommendations must be realistic, feasible in practice and make sense for your chosen brand. Research the brand to see what has been done before, and if you can potentially build on that. If you can identify any weaknesses in the brand’s current strategy, use these to argue your case and support your own recommendations. In your re-launch strategy, you can suggest a radical makeover or only gentle changes for your brand (or anything in between), as long as you can provide sound reasons and arguments for your recommendations. When developing your relaunch strategy, do not just describe the tactics (i.e. individual tools such as advertising, direct mail, sponsorship etc.) but tell the overarching ‘story’ – the image and values your campaign wants to convey and how they enhance brand equity.
The primary aim of the report, and a key criterion for awarding high marks, is your ability to demonstrate that you have a sound knowledge of brand management theory. You can do this through your analysis of your brand, but particularly through your proposed brand relaunch. Good marks will not be awarded for assignments that merely describe a brand’s current strategy, but do not develop justified recommendations for a new/updated branding strategy. While the initial analysis is important, your focus should be on your suggestions for a makeover.
The report should be of a suitable quality that could be used by the Brand Manager of the company to communicate the rebranding strategy to their colleagues and shareholders.
You are expected to read around the subject of brands and branding.
Demonstrate that you have done this by citing the work of scholars who have written about brands. You can achieve additional marks by citing, not only textbooks, but also academic journal papers to underpin your argumentation. Finally, use references from newspapers, company websites, market reports etc. to support your analysis of the brand’s current strategy and to demonstrate that your recommendations are realistic and viable.