64

of the best analytical

questions to assess your
brand’s performance
 Use analytics to uncover your brand issues
Marketplace Consumers Channels
Start by looking at the overall category performance Analyze your consumer target to better For those who sell through partners to reach
to gain a macro view of all significant issues. Dig in understand the consumer’s underlying beliefs, their consumer, assess the performance of all
on the factors impacting category growth, including buying habits, growth trends, and critical insights. potential distribution channels and the
economic indicators, consumer behavior, Use the brand funnel analysis and leaky bucket performance of every major channel customer.
technology changes, shopper trends, and political analysis to uncover how they shop and how they Understand their strategies, and how well your
regulations. Also look at what is happening in make purchase decisions. Try to understand what brand is using their available tools and
related categories, which could impact your they think when they buy or reject your brand at programs. Your brand must align with your
category or replicate what you may see next. every stage of the consumer’s purchase journey. channel customer strategies.

Competitors Brand
Dissect your closest competitors by looking at their Analyze your brand through the lens of consumers,
performance indicators, brand positioning, innovation customers, competitors, and employees. Use brand funnel
pipeline, pricing strategies, distribution, and the data, market research, marketing program tracking results,
consumer’s perceptions of these brands. To go even pricing analysis, distribution gaps, and financial analysis.
deeper, you can map out a strategic brand plan for Focus on managing your brand’s health and wealth.
significant competitors to predict what they might do Uncover consumer perceptions through tracking data,
next. Use that knowledge within your brand plan. the voice of the consumer, and market research.

With each of the five sections of the deep-dive, we will go through our 10 best questions
 Our 10 best marketplace questions
1. How is the category doing relative to the economy?

Analyzing the 2. Look at the last 3-5 years and explain each of the ups and downs in the category.

Marketplace
3. What is the overall value of the category? Any price changes? Major cost changes?
4. Which sales channel, regional or geographic trends do you see? Which are growing
and which are in decline? Is it unit or price decline? Explain any underlying regional
causes for the numbers are you are seeing.
5. What category segments are growing, declining or emerging?
6. Explain the role of each type of innovation: product extensions, product improvements,
new formats, brand stretching, game changing technology or blue ocean?
7. What are the macro factors driving category growth? What is holding the category
back? What are the significant open opportunities you use that you can use to your
advantage? What are the risks to the categories in the next few years?
8. What are the macro trends influencing or changing this category? What is the impact of
political, economic, social or technology on the category?
9. Who holds the balance of power in the category: brands, suppliers, channels, or
consumers?
10. Look at other issues across the marketplace regarding any operations, inventory,
mergers, technology, innovation, investments, global trade.
 Our 10 best consuumer questions
1. Who is your current target? How have you determined the impact of demographics,
behavioral, psychographic, geographic, or usage occasions? Lifestage trends?
Analyzing the
2. Who are the consumers most motivated by what you have to offer? Who are your possible
Consumers target consumer segments? Are they growing? How do you measure them?
3. What drives consumer choice? What are the primary need states? How do these consumer
needs line up to your brand assets? Where can you win with consumers?
4. How is your brand performing against key shopping patterns, looking at penetration, buying
rates that include frequency of purchase, and sales per trip?
5. How is your brand performing against key segments with regards to share and sales by
channel or geography? Look at your brand performance over latest 4-weeks, 12-weeks,
and year-to-date, compared to competitors.
6. Map out the path to purchase and use brand funnels to assess your brand’s performance in
moving through each stage. Are consumers changing at stages? Are you failing at stages?
7. What is the consumer’s perceptions of your brand and your competitors? Voice of the
consumer.
8. How do consumers shop as they move through each stage of the brand funnel?
9. What are the emerging consumer trends? How does your brand match up to potentially
exploit them? Where would your competitors win?
10. What are the consumer’s ideal brand experiences and unmet needs we can address?
 Our 10 best channel questions
1. What is your business model? Do you use multiple models? B2C, B2B, SaaS, DTC,
Retail or through distributors?
Analyzing the
2. How is your brand doing in each of the channels? Are there any regional differences

Channels by channel? Channel shifts? Are there new and emerging channels? Are there new
channels on the horizon, not yet developed?
3. What are the strengths, issues, opportunities and risks of each channel, to identify
where you can have the most impact?
4. Do you understand the strategies of your retail customers?
5. Do you have the competencies to service your customers?
6. Who are the top 5 customers? What are their main strategies? How does your brand
fit into that plan? Create a scorecard to highlight how well you are aligned to their
performance.
7. How is your brand doing within each customer? What are your brand’s channel-related
strengths and weaknesses?
8. Who are your primary and secondary customers? Have you segmented and prioritized
for growth versus opportunity? How large are they? What are their growth rates?
9. How is each customer performing? How profitable is that customer?
10. How is the relationship with the customer? Who is the category captain of your key
accounts and why?
 Our 10 best competitor questions
1. Who are your main competitors, both direct and indirect? How do they position
Analyzing the themselves?

Competitors 2. Describe your competitor’s operating model, culture, and organization structure. What
is the culture at your competitor and what is the role culture plays in their brand?
3. What are your competitor’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats?
4. Map out competitor’s brand plan: vision, goals, key issues, strategies, and tactics.
5. What are your competitor’s use of communication, new products, and go-to-market
strategy? How are they executing against each?
6. Explain all the ups and downs over time, looking at the micro and macro performance
of your competitors.
7. What is the investment stance and expected growth trajectory of your competitor’s
brand? How much and where do they invest? What are the marketing and
commercial focus? What is their ROI?
8. How is your competitor doing regarding market share, customer market shares,
investment, margins, innovation, culture, share of voice, or any regulatory advantage?
9. How do the competitor prices match up? How does each competitor use price?
10. Any public materials about the competitor, including strategy and financial results?
 Our 10 best brand questions
1. What consumer benefit can you win with, which is ownable, unique, and motivating
Analyzing the for consumers?

Brand 2. How far can you “stretch” your brand into other opportunities?
3. What is driving your biggest gains versus prior periods? What is your biggest gap
or inhibitor?
4. What is your market share? Regionally? By channel? Where is your strength?
Brand Q’s
Where is your gap?
5. How are you performing on key brand tracking data? Penetration? Frequency?
Sales per buyer or per trip?
6. What are your brand’s scores on the brand funnel?
7. How is your program tracking data doing? Where could you improve?
8. What are the underlying attitudes about your brand and how it fits in with the
consumers’ lives? Where do consumers see you in relation to your competitors?
9. What is driving negative perceptions and causing consumers to leave your brand?
10. How do you describe the culture behind the brand, and how does that impact the
consumer experience? Do you have alignment with the brand story and your
employees? Alignment with operations, sales and innovation?
 Our 10 best finace questions
1. What is your brand’s compound annual growth rate (CAGR)? Explain the ups and downs
Analyzing the over the past five years.
2. What are your gross margins and contribution margins over last five years? Can you break
Financials it out by product line? Is there more pressure from price or the cost of goods?
3. What is your brand’s marketing budget breakout? Variable direct costs versus indirect fixed
dollars? What is the break between media and creative production? Consumer spend
versus trade spend?
4. Have you completed any pricing elasticity studies? What did you learn about your brand? If
you did increase your price, what did you see in the marketplace?
5. How is your brand’s overall strategy impacting your brand’s profits? How do your decisions
on your brand’s core strength, consumer connection, competitive pressures, and situation
impact your financials?
6. How are your current brand/business performance metrics, brand’s market goals, and
financials linked?
7. Over the past 5 years, what are the programs that drive the highest and lowest ROI?
8. How does your business model impact your overall profit? What is your focus now?
9. What are your forecasting error rates? Is there a seasonality impact? What economic
factors impact your brand’s financials? How reasonable are your inventory levels?
10. What financial pressures do you face on an annual or quarterly basis?
 Winning

Strategic
1
Strategic ThinkBox What your
customers
What your
brand 2
Positioning
Thinking 1

2
Core Strength
Consumer
want does best
Statement
3 Competitor
4 Situation What your
competitor
does best

Measuring the brand love, to determine the

love, power and profit progress of the brand
strategic
thinking Our Beloved Brands
Use the brand funnel to measure health Marketing Plan
Brand Plan GRAY’S
Cookies

marketing
Brand Vision: Clearly state your brand’s long-term vision statement
• Brand funnels become thicker as the brand
Analysis Strategy Execution
becomes more loved. It’s not just about driving P&L forecast Key Issues Advertising
Awareness particular numbers but about moving them from Sales
Gross Margin
$30,385
$17,148
1. What’s the priority choice for growth: find
new users or drive usage frequency among
Use awareness to drive trial of the new Grays.
Target “Proactive Preventers”. Suburban working
GM % 56% loyalists? women, 35-40.Main Message of “great tasting
one stage to the next. Marketing Budget
Contribution Margin
$8,850
$6,949
2. Where should the investment/resources
focus and deployment be to drive our
cookie without the guilt, so you can stay in control
of your health”. Media includes 15 second TV,
CM% 23% awareness and share needs for Gray’s? specialty health magazines, event signage, digital
Familiar • Awareness is never enough. Anyone can get that. Drivers
• Taste drives a high conversion of Trial to
3. How will we defend Gray’s against the
proposed Q1 2014 ‘healthy cookie’ launches
and social media

Sampling
Consideration is the point you start to see that your Purchase
from Pepperidge Farms and Nabisco?
Drive trial with In-store sampling at grocery,
• Strong Listings in Food Channels Strategies Costco, health food stores and event sampling at
brand idea starts to connect and move the • Exceptional brand health scores among Early 1. Continue to attract new users to Gray’s fitness, yoga, women’s networking, new moms.
Consider

training
Adopters. Highly Beloved Brand among niche. 2. Focus investment on driving awareness and
Distribution
consumer. Inhibitors
trial with new consumers and building a
presence at retail. Support Q4 retail blitz with message focused on
• Low familiar yet to turn our sales into loyalty 3. Build defence plan against new entrants that holding shelf space during the competitive
• Awareness held back due to weak Advertising launches. Q2 specialty blitz to grow distribution at

Purchase • To drive trial you need to gain consideration first • Low distribution at specialty stores. Poor
coverage. Goals
defends with consumers and at store level.
key specialty stores.
Innovation
(the brain) and then you need to move the Risks
• Increase penetration from 10% to 12%,
specifically up from 15% to 20% with the core Launch 2 new flavors in Q4/15 & Q4/16.
• Launch of Mainstream cookie brands Explore diet claims.

Repeat consumer towards purchase and through the •

(Pepperidge Farms and Nabisco).
De-listing 2 weakest skus weakened our in-
target. Monitor usage frequency among the
most loyal to ensure it stays steady.
Competitive Attack Plan
• Increase awareness from 33% to 42%,
experience. •
store presence
Legal Challenge to tastes claims
specifically up from 45% to 50% within the
core target. Drive trial from 15% to 20%.
Pre Launch sales blitz to shore up all distribution
gaps. At launch, heavy merchandising, locking up
key ad dates, BOGO. TV, print, coupons, in-store
Opportunities Focus for sales is to close distribution gaps
Loyal • To drive loyalty (the heart) you need to create •
•
R&D has 5 new flavors in development.
Sales Broker create gains at Specialty Stores •
going from 62% to 72%.
Hold dollar share during competitive launch.
sampling.
Use sales story that any new “healthy”
cookies should displace under-performing
experiences that deliver the promise and use tools • Explore social media to convert loyal
following.
Continue to grow 11% post launch gaining up
to 1.2% share. Target zero losses at shelf. and declining unhealthy cookies.

to create an emotional bond with the consumer.

Marketing Marketing
5 3 teaches the best ways to think,
Beloved Brands
The playbook for how to build a
brand your consumers will love.
The playbook for how to create a

Analytics Plans
✓ How to think strategically
✓ Write a brand positioning statement
✓
✓
✓
Come up with a brand idea
Write a brand plan everyone can follow
Write an inspiring creative brief
brand your consumers will love
✓ Make decisions on marketing execution
✓
✓
Conduct a deep-dive business review
Learn finance 101 for marketers !1

define, plan, execute and analyze

Beloved Brands is available on Amazon and Apple Books

Creative Brief

4 Marketing
Execution
 Marketing training program
Specific topics we cover in each module of our Beloved Brands marketing training

Strategic thinking & brand analytics Finding the brand positioning

• How you think and decide • Competitive strategy • Target consumer profile • Features and claims
• Elements of strategy • Situation strategy • Consumer needs • Brand positioning statement
• Strategic ThinkBox • 64 best analytical questions • Consumer insights • Defining the brand idea
• Brand’s core strength • Deep-dive business review • Functional benefits • Brand idea map
• Consumer strategy • Finding a brand’s key issues • Emotional benefits • Brand concepts

Writing a marketing plan Marketing execution decisions

• Brand planning process • Building strategic slides. • Creative process • Message communication
• Rough draft of Brand Plan • Brand communications plans. • Marketing PlayBox • Ads that sticks
• Vision, purpose, values • Innovation plans & checklist. • Creative Brief • Creative Checklist
• Writing the key issues • Sales, pricing, retail plans. • Ads that get attention • Creative decision-making
• Brand strategy statements • Brand plan presentation. • Strong brand link • Media planning decisions
Our marketing training brings three distinct streams
based on the type of business your team manages

Every example we use is in our training is specific to the type of business

the marketers work on. The lessons bring relevant tools that can be applied
to their brand. Also, our brand books line up with the type of business.
 We empower the ambitious
to achieve the extraordinary

graham@beloved-brands.com

416 - 885 - 3911