Why an audit is an essential prelude to a branding review
Prior to undertaking a branding review, you need to gather all applications - tangible and intangible - which contribute to the success of the brand. These range from business cards to mainstream advertising to the way your receptionist is answering the phone to the way your salespeople are dressed to what your employees are saying on Twitter. The objective is to determine how applications are being used, guidelines adhered to, levels of quality and consistency and how these are impacting on the experience your audiences have of the brand and their perception of it.
Putting all of an organisation’s materials side-by-side in the one place can be a sobering experience for many. It inevitably identifies shortcomings such as...
quality issues
levels of inconsistency
relevance to the task
whether materials are outdated
omissions
relevance to the organisation’s short and long term business objectives
A visual audit however, can only achieve so much. The way in which the materials are used is important as this tends to identify whether they remain appropriate for their intended purpose since they were introduced or whether they need to be changed or even deleted. Do employee induction materials reflect the downturn-driven changes the company has made in the last 12 months? Are point-of-sale messages consistent with the organisation’s current advertising? Are machinery operating instructions consistent with workplace safety requirements? Does the organisation’s product packaging suitably reflect its stance on sustainability? Do the messages on motivational posters throughout the organisation truly reflect the culture of the organisation and its attitude to employees? Are customer communications saying the right things for the way in which the organisation wishes to conduct its business moving forward into 2010 and beyond? Is your marketing department disengaged by the events of 2009 and operating with blinkered vision that may just be detrimental to how the business and its products need to be perceived to capture new market opportunities?
Heywood Innovation’s audit reports probe significantly deeper than a simple check on whether the organisation’s logo and colours are correctly reproduced! Key components of the organisation’s brand are its employees and customers. We conduct online surveys and facilitated workshops with employees, key managers, executives and customers to gauge their real perceptions of the brand at this moment in time and collect their ideas. We get to know what employees’ thoughts are on the materials with which they work - whether they are helping them do their job or hindering them, and whether the employees have ideas for improvements or something totally new.
An audit conducted by an external resource like Heywood Innovation will guarantee an objective viewpoint based around questions, comments and recommendations that would challenge most internal resources.
How does your brand stack up with the organisation’s business plans and vision for the future?
Are the materials which represent the organisation’s brand appropriate to support the organisation’s business plans and vision for 2010? Have there been significant changes to the way in which the organisation operates since the upheavals of 2009 to warrant changes to the way the brand is expressed and ultimately perceived both internally and externally?
The answers to these questions can only be answered by a well considered and executed audit. Now would be an ideal time to consider this before the post-Christmas momentum takes hold...
Tony Heywood is an international branding consultant and founder of Heywood Innovation in Sydney Australia with affiliates in Melbourne, Gold Coast, London, Singapore and Mumbai.
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