Richard Brown Asks Ten Questions About Brands at a recent seminar on brand management

May 23, 2009 - PRLog -- Bristol, UK  --  Brand reputation is more important than ever but many marketers are failing to monitor and evaluate their own brands, according to a leading brand reputation agency.

Speaking at a recent seminar on brand management organised by The Brand Network, managing director of Brand Reputation, Graeme Crossley, claimed that most marketing managers do not understand the fundamental characteristics that contribute to a “valuable” brand. He said they “could be making entirely the wrong choices based on flawed information about how the brand is perceived by customers and stakeholders”.

Managing brands is vital for all companies, says Richard Brown, director at Closer to Brands and expert contributor to Marketing Donut, the new advice website for small businesses. “All good marketers want to know what current and potential customers think and feel about their brand. How much they actually know depends on how much research they do and how well they track their brand’s image. Small firms should definitely follow the same principles as big companies. Good brands build up strong, long-lasting relationships with their customers. They do this by satisfying people’s needs. You can’t do that if you don’t understand what those needs are.”

When it comes to brands, size really doesn’t matter, says Crossley. “The first thing marketing managers need to remember is that the brand value has nothing to do with how big the company is. To really understand where the brand is and where it is going to go in the future, you need to be able to answer a number of fundamental questions with regards to how the brand is viewed in the wider world.”

Graeme Crossley has ten questions that he poses to help companies evaluate their own brands:

1. Do you know what your competitors reputations are? How does your brand compare?
2. Are you losing more customers than you are gaining?
3. Have you calculated the value of sales you have lost due to your reputation?
4. How are you monitoring consumer-generated media?
5. What is the worst rumour about your brand?
6. Do consumers believe what you say about your brand?
7. How do you plan to change or improve consumer perception of your brand?
8. What percentage of sentiment towards your brand is positive versus negative?
9. Is your brand as transparent, ethical & responsible as it could be?
10. Do you know how best to improve what consumers say about your brand?

According to Crossley, many marketers are struggling to answer more than one out of the ten questions. “I find that most know how their brand reputation compares to their competitors,” he says. “But they struggle to answer the other questions and at that point it becomes clear that they lack the knowledge and resources required to strengthen the reputation of their brand.”

The question is, can any firm afford to ignore these questions?

Further information:

Become a Marketing Donut expert by visiting the BHP Information Solutions website www.bhpinfosolutions.co.uk/Who-we-are/Experts.aspx
Register for Marketing Donut here www.marketingdonut.co.uk/user/register?destination=node%2F27
Get in touch with Closer to Brands here http://www.closertobrands.co.uk/

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