Strategic Brand Management
Assignment Type : Individual
• _Word Limit: 2,500 words (not including the 8-10 page PowerPoint) see Section 5 for details
• _Submission: electronically only
• _Contribution: 100% of overall module mark (Report 90% PowerPoint 10%)
• _Layout (compulsory): Font: Times New Roman or Arial; Font size 12; 1.5 line spacing; 1 inch (2.5cm) margins on all sides
1. Your Task
This assignment has been designed to help you learn how to re-launch a brand. You are asked to choose one of the brands from the list below. These organisations are long-established brands that were successful but would benefit from a makeover to bring them into the 21st century. Building on your critical evaluation of its current strategy and the theory discussed in the module.
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 PowerPoint presentation document, both 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:
• Uber
• TikTok
• Royal Mail
• Cadburys
The following list might help give you some ideas to consider when analysing your chosen brand and developing a new branding strategy for it. However, please do not follow this slavishly – this is not a definitive list. You should only include some of the following if relevant, and your assignment need not be limited to these points:
• 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 (90% 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,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 the 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:
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 at least 7 academic sources (articles from academic journals or textbooks). You must follow the Harvard referencing method (see your UG Student Handbook for more details).
PowerPoint (10% of your assignment mark)
An 8 -10 page PowerPoint presentation that could be used to communicate a re- launch strategy for the chosen brand. The PowerPoint should be created to resemble one “that the Brand Manager of the company might use to communicate the rebranding strategy to their colleagues”.
The PowerPoint in your assignment could contain the following sections:
1. Introduction
2. Framework used (e.g., CBBE)
3. Apply Framework
4. Brand Analysis – The Brand Today (looking at the Past), incl. the product or service
5. Brand Analysis-The Brand / Product and its Consumers
6. Brand Analysis-The Brand / Product and its Competitors
7. Brand Relaunch – Compiling your suggested framework and analysis covered in page 2-6 to provide a relaunch Idea (i.e., based on our analysis, we recommend…)
8. Brand Relaunch – How the Relaunch is Implementing (How, Why, Where and When as it relates to the Framework)
9. Brand Relaunch – How the Relaunch is Implementing (How, Why, Where and When as it relates to the Framework)
10. References
Remember to use lots of images, this is a corporate presentation! You may add brief notes to you PowerPoint.
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 PowerPoint 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 PowerPoint presentation 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. The PowerPoint document should not include long written statements but only bullet points, images and infographics etc.
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. Use a minimum of seven references from academic sources. 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.
Do not exceed the word count. I encourage the use of pictures and images to illustrate your work. For example, rather than describing the concept for a new advertising campaign or packaging in detail, you could draft a basic layout or design (it does not have to be perfect; this is not a graphic design assignment after all). Your assignments will be in colour, so you can include visual material. The PowerPoint is not included in the word count but should contain no more that 8 PowerPoint slides.
Note that there is no ‘right’ answer. Two students can produce widely different reports, using different brands and theories, making different recommendations and both score good marks.
