The biggest mistake you can make doing a Brand Audit

... is to do it yourself. Perhaps a bigger mistake is to let your Advertising Agency do it for you. Why?

• When you do your Brand Audit yourself you are much too close to your own reality to understand the brand perception reality. You come into the audit with a preconceived notion of what your brand stands for and how you believe your customers should perceive the brand. If you are executing the audit and interpreting the results, you are much more likely to miss the "big picture" that the Brand Audit presents.

• When your Advertising Agency does a Brand Audit they only look at a very narrow slice of what your Brand represents. Typically that comes down to your Brand standards - the colors, shapes, fonts, etc. that you use in your logo and ads. Hopefully they will stretch and try to determine what your brand means. But, your brand is like an iceberg. Only the top 10% is represented by the brand standards. The remaining 90% that your Advertising Agency will typically miss includes the perception and experience your customers have with your product or service, the interactions your customers have with people representing your company, review of your brand plan and your marketing plan, and so forth. There's a lot. You will want a holistic view to make sure that you get the "big picture".
  

For similar reasons, if you were in your company's Finance Department you would not be allowed to audit yourself, and similarly if you used outside accountants they would not be allowed to perform an audit of themselves. That analogy holds true for a Brand Manager performing a Brand Audit.

A Brand Manager's responsibility as part of a Brand Audit is to believe in the process, oversee the project, understand the results, and take action to improve brand perception. By improving the brand perception you will improve sales and profitability.

If you are a Brand Manager, you need to select a company who can help you plan, execute, and interpret a Brand Audit. That may mean bringing in a 3rd party to help you out, or ensuring that your Advertising Agency brings in a 3rd party to help them out. Then sit back, enjoy the ride, and take in the scenery along the way, so that you have a fresh view of your brand and can make the right "big picture" decisions.

Contact Market GoGo to find out more about how we can help you with your Brand Audit.