The Brand Audit is a discovery process that seeks to reveal how your target clients currently think and feel about your organization, and sets a vision for how we would like to be perceived going forward.
Brand is all encompassing – it is the total experience that someone has with your organization, its products, and its services.
Brand is greater than the sum of its parts. A brand stands for something, and that something is important and relevant to those you serve. It can be an ideal, a philosophy, a lifestyle, a value … something that people want to be associated with and are proud to tell others about. A brand compels, and ideally, tugs at heartstrings. In a field of competitors offering very similar products and services, brand is the differentiator. Ultimately, if we were to mention “San Diego County Bar Foundation” to someone, that someone should immediately have in mind a word or phrase that uniquely describes what we stand for.
This is what we want for your organization.
A typical brand audit is a multi-meeting discovery process led by a skilled facilitator, involving a representative group of stakeholders and decision makers. It also involves secondary research of the organization’s industry and operating environment, and, budget and time allowing, some primary research, such as client surveys, focus groups, or 1:1 interviews.
For your sall business or organization, we can also capture the essential core of this information with this self-serve questionnaire, which will form the foundation for our work together.
The deliverables of a brand audit are typically statements of mission, vision, and core values, a definition of your brand’s “voice,” and a messaging platform – the concise key talking points that define us – your elevator pitch, if you will.
That elevator pitch must deliver what I call “S.W.I.F.T.” — Show What’s In it For Them. Our brand is not about us; it’s about them. Every contact with our clients is an opportunity to show what we can do for them; not about how awesome we are (though we areawesome!).
Please take your time with this questionnaire. Your input is valuable! Please be as honest, thoughtful, specific, and detailed as you can. There is no limit on word count. 😉 Also, your personal perception is key here – not what the official party line says or what’s written on our website. Think of this as a blank-slate opportunity to say what you really think and feel about where we are today and where we should be headed.
Most of all, have fun with this!
TIP: This questionnaire does not include a save option. You can consider answering the questions in a Word Document, and then copying and pasting the answers into the questionnaire.
