Brand Research conducted by BOD serves as a powerful tool to assist the creation, development and ongoing management of brands. Research is usually carried out at an early stage, to help determine the exact positioning of the brand, and also at later stages, to assist in the development of specific aspects of the brand mix such as product formulation, naming, packaging and advertising.

The BOD team follows a structured approach in conducting brand research which addresses three main domains

• Internal Research (inside the enterprise, at the employees’ level)
• External Research (at the customer level mainly, but can be extended to other external stakeholders such as investors, community, media and analysts)
• Competitor Review (a detailed study of your competitors)

Internal Research

The purpose of the internal research or the brand essence research is to establish how internal processes impact the initiatives and activities that a client undertakes for its stakeholders. The findings & analysis of this research serve three important purposes:

• Provide an in depth understanding of the culture and the strengths and weaknesses of an enterprise, in other words, the capabilities and resources which from the DNA of the organization
• An important objective of this research is to determine the intended brand perception of the enterprise and identification of opportunities for branding at an employee level
• This acts as groundwork for the external research to be done post this exercise

External Research

The purpose of this exercise is to understand how the stakeholders outside the enterprise perceive your brand and how far the brand has been successful in fulfilling its roles and achieving its objectives .This is an extensive exercise that involves interviews with your customers in the relevant sectors. The output of this exercise is in terms of findings, analysis, presentations and reports that will give an in depth understanding of the current brand perception as well as the expected brand perception of the different stakeholders.

It also gives invaluable insight into the needs and expectations of your customers and how far their needs have been fulfilled. This gives a direction to your marketing and brand management teams when designing & organizing initiatives and activities for the different stakeholders.

Competitor Review

A detailed review of your competitors is conducted with the objective of identifying

• The product and brand positioning of your competitors along with an assessment of their brand strength from an identity, awareness and promotional perspective
• Areas of improvement where your enterprise is lacking compared to your competitors’ brands
• Their best practices and brand maturity when it comes to the quality and relevance of their Brand Positioning and Brand Identity