|
|
|
By Richard Czerniawski and Mike Maloney
We are at war with competitive brands. Brand planning,
as contrasted with business planning, is about competing for the customer.
Its focus is on developing and evolving the brand, going beyond merely
selling the product.
The first step in brand strategy is to create a "war
room." It will provide your troops with critical information leading
to a better understanding of brand health, planning and decision making.
Place your war room in a location where you and members of your team meet
frequently. It should be a place where you can control and limit broadcasting
sensitive information to those who have a need to know—members of
the brand team and management.
The war room has three objectives:
- Gather intelligence about the competition.
- Share understanding of strategies, initiatives under development and
causal factors influencing performance.
- Identify key issues and brainstorm activities to strengthen the brand
and win the war against competition.
Include the following intelligence in your war chest:
- Sales and market share, captured in the most relevant measures (e.g.,
units, dollars, prescriptions, orders, etc.) in the shortest time interval
practical.
- Category dynamics to put brand sales in perspective. This will provide
an indication of the vitality of the category. Display absolute sales
and growth rates relative to the same period a year ago.
- Key market and brand drivers for the brand and key competitors. These
are contributors to, and predictors of, brand performance and health.
The key market and brand drivers will vary by industry, category and
company and may include comparative pricing, retail feature and display
activity, television GRPs (gross rating points), number of print ad
pages (and other relevant measures in key media), market research data
(encompassing customer awareness, usage and attitudes, penetration,
frequency of purchase, transaction size, repeat purchase activity),
quality of distribution, number of customer calls, conversion rates
on customer calls and/or trial, among others.
- Customer "hot line," or some similar outlet, that gathers
customer comments and enables you to stay abreast of quality, product
performance, servicing, etc.
- Competitive initiatives in areas such as promotion, product developments,
patent applications, testing activities, public relations, ad campaigns,
etc. Record and display a timeline of initiatives for each major competitor.
This will help you to understand competitive strategies, identify changes
in strategies and/or level of activities and even predict likely next
steps.
- Comparative product performance. This should be measured by the client
company or independent lab. Snapshots should be taken on a scheduled
basis to keep abreast of comparative performance at different points
in time.
Additional Weapons in Your Arsenal
The war room is also utilized to share understanding of your brand’s
strategies and initiatives. Among the elements you should consider for
display are the following:
- The "Official" Brand Positioning Statement. This
is your brand’s DNA. The official statement reminds everyone of
the brand’s positioning strategy. The statement contains market
research support, which serves to enhance understanding and keep everyone
on the chosen path.
- The Positioning Matrix. This helps everyone understand how
the brand is being differentiated versus the competition.
- The Target Customer Profile. We should know our target customer
so well that we can accurately predict how s/he will respond to specific
marketing initiatives. An intelligently crafted customer profile will
also keep everyone on the team focused on who they are serving. In addition
to including stats and insights, give the customer a name and face.
When making key decisions, have everyone look the customer in the face
and address the question "How would (name of target customer) respond
to this?"
- The Marketing Objective, which includes penetration, competitive
conversion, compliance, etc.
- Annual Schedule of Marketing Initiatives, including key timelines
and assigned responsibilities.
Final Thoughts
The war room must be kept up to date. Intelligence must be relevant and
timely. Assign yourself or a team member to update the war room weekly.
Display all intelligence in a format that communicates quickly and clearly
(e.g., graphs instead of lists of numbers).
Once we have our war room outfitted with relevant intelligence
we can use it to identify and address key issues. We can conduct SWOT
(identifying Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) analyses,
identify competitive strategies and predict likely initiatives, diagnose
the health of our brand and prescribe needed initiatives for enhancing
it, and play "what if" war games—among others.
For additional information, consider the following
AMA seminars:
Authors Bios: The authors can be reached at Brand
Development Network International, 430 Abbotsford Road, Kenilworth, Illinois
60043, (847)256-8820 * Fax (847)256-8847
|
|
 |
AMA Learning Network |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
