What is a brand audit in graphic text for a blog by Halo Media

What is a brand audit?

What is a brand audit and why should you do one?

A brand audit is a detailed analysis that shows how your brand is currently performing compared to its set goals and then look at the wider landscape to see how that performance positions you in the market. These methods and focus areas can differ depending on individual companies.

A Brand Audit will allow you to:

  • Evaluate the performance of your brand
  • Establish your strengths and weaknesses
  • Examine the efficiency of your existing external marketing collateral
  • Examine Internal Branding: your positioning, voice, brand values, culture, USP, and product
  • Align your strategy more closely with the expectations of your customers
  • Discover your place in the market compared to the competition

Why should you do a brand audit?

People make decisions based on impressions. And if you haven’t decided on the impression you want to make, along with taking the actions to implement this, then your image may be incorrectly projected.

The cost of this, be it a personal brand or your company brand, is that those who invest in you – clients, employers, employees and stakeholders may have the wrong idea of your values, or your products or your service. But if you don’t address these perceptions – correcting the weak and building on the strong, chances are you will slip behind your competitors and feel it in your bottom line.

What are the benefits of a brand audit?

If you have a company and you have a brand… chances are you don’t know how well it is doing across the board. A Brand Audit provides a health check, along with a measurable and implementable action plan. It allows you to understand how your customers see you and perceive your company and products/services.

A brand audit will:

  • Give you insight to how your marketing investments are working.
  • Give you insights into what your clients and customers are thinking of you, and what is affecting their purchasing decisions. This allows you to to fix problems, or identify your top-selling services and products.
  • Allow you to understand how your staff are feeling – this will help you with staff retention, morale and assist in identifying your loyal brand ambassadors and future leaders in the company.
  • Allow you to discover if your company values are actually being practised, or if they are just lip service in the boardroom.
  • Define if your products/services are correctly suited to the market you are selling to – and if you need to reassess your offering, or redefine your target market.

Who should actually do the audit?

Have you ever heard of the saying … you can't see the label from inside the bottle? For this reason it's recommended to use an external brand specialist to audit your brand. This way you benefit from:

  • An unbiased approach
  • An experienced, trained and critical eye
  • A proven action plan once the objectives have been identified

How is a brand audit done?

We’ll give you a more comprehensive breakdown when we discuss your brand audit, but in short, we do it by visually assessing your brand, and then by surveying your company, stakeholders and customers.

To accomplish this, we have a team of designers and marketers who have worked on leading global brands for a minimum of ten years each. We use common sense (a highly underrated tool!) and a passion for successful branding, to look for improvement opportunities, and then to create an actionable plan – because even the most amazing report doesn't mean anything unless you put it into practice. We follow it up later to ensure that this has been put into place and to measure the success.

We'll cover:

  • 1. Brand Strategy

    The underlying strategy and objectives behind the brand, its target audience, and its unique value proposition. So we look to see if you have a strategy in place, and if your brand is living up to those standards.

  • 2. Brand Identity

    We look at the visual and verbal elements that represent the brand. These including logos, taglines, colours, typography, and overall brand messaging.

  • 3. Brand Messaging

    This is the communication strategy and key messages used to convey the brand’s values, benefits, and personality to the target audience.

  • 4. Brand Positioning

    Positioning is how your brand is perceived in relation to its competitors and its intended market position. This includes assessing the brand’s differentiation and relevance in the marketplace.

  • 5. Brand Equity

    Perception audits allow us to look at the value and strength of the brand in the minds of consumers, including brand awareness, associations, loyalty, and perceived quality. These give you insights into why your target audience chooses you.

  • 6. Brand Touchpoints

    The various channels and customer touch points through which the brand interacts with its audience. These include as websites, social media, advertising, packaging, and customer service.

  • 7. Brand Consistency

    We’ll evaluate the consistency and coherence of the brand across different touch points and communication channels to ensure a unified brand experience.

  • 8. Competitive Analysis

    A competitive analyses overlaps doing a brand strategy and depends on your needs and budget. This is where we evaluate the brand’s competitors, their positioning, messaging, and strategies to identify opportunities and challenges.

Brand audits help identify strengths and weaknesses of a company's brand, as well as opportunities for improvement. By measuring brand equity, marketing strategies, and rebranding efforts, organizations can enhance brand equity, resonate with their target audiences, and achieve their business goals.

Do you need a brand audit? We can assist you with brand audits, perception audits and employee engagement surveys. Speak to Halo today. Or kick it off with doing your own Brand Audit with our handy Brand Audit Checklist here.