The document provides guidance on conducting a deep-dive business review of a brand by analyzing six key areas: 1) the overall category performance and trends, 2) the target consumer segments and buying behaviors, 3) the various distribution channels and major customers, 4) the closest competitors' strategies and perceptions, 5) the performance and health of the brand itself, and 6) summarizing the findings to identify drivers of and inhibitors to growth as well as opportunities and risks. It outlines processes for reviewing each area, such as mapping out the consumer buying system and brand funnel, creating customer scorecards, and dissecting competitors. The deep-dive review aims to provide insights to inform the brand planning process.

1. THE BRAND LEADER
How to lead a deep-dive
Business Review on your Brand
You owe your brand a deep-dive Business Review at least once a year. Otherwise, you are
being negligent to your brand. By operating only at the surface level, you miss out on what’s going
on beneath your instinctual observations. To go deep, you need to look at everything, including the
category you play in, the consumers you serve, the distribution channels you sell through, your main
competitors and the underlying health of your own brand. The deep-dive Business Review should
kick-off your brand planning process, ensuring your plans are addressing the right issues and that
you have the knowledge to make informed decisions on your brand.
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2. Our recommended 6-step process for
leading a deep-dive Business Review
1. Category: You should start by looking at the overall category performance to gain a macro view
of all major issues. Dig in on the factors impacting category growth, including economic
indicators, consumer behavior, technology changes, shopper trends, political regulations or
whats happening in other related categories that could impact your own category.
2. Consumer: The review should define your consumer target, knowing the consumer’s underlying
beliefs, buying habits, growth trends and key insights. We use a consumer buying system
analysis and leaky bucket analysis to uncover how they shop the category and your brand. You
need to uncover consumer perceptions through tracking data or market research.
3. Channels: Look at the performance of all potential distribution channels and every major
customer in the category. It is important that you understand your channel customer’s
strategies, as well as the available tools and programs, so your brand can align your brand with
the customer and be more successful in each channel.
4. Competitors: Dissect your closest competitors by looking at their performance indicators,
brand positioning, innovation pipeline, pricing strategies, distribution and the perceptions of the
consumers. Map out a strategic Brand Plan for all major competitors to help predict what they
might do next, and know how you might counter in your own brand plan.
5. Brand: Understand the view of your brand through the lens of consumers, customers and
employees. Use brand funnel data, market research, marketing program tracking results, pricing
analysis, distribution gaps and financial analysis. We recommend that you look at the internal
health and wealth as well as the external health and wealth of the brand.
6. Summarize the Analysis to help set up the issues to tackle on your Brand Plan
• What’s driving growth? Focus on the top factors of strength, positional power or market
inertia that has a proven link to driving growth behind your brand. Your Brand Plan will be
built on continuing to fuel these drivers.
• What’s inhibiting growth? Focus on the top factors of weakness, unaddressed gaps or
market friction that can be proven to be holding back the growth of your brand. Your Brand
Plan should focus on reducing or reversing these inhibitors to your growth.
• Opportunities for growth: Specific untapped areas in the market that would fuel future
growth, based on unfulfilled consumer needs, new technologies on the horizon, regulation
changes, new distribution channels or the removal of trade barriers. The plan should take
advantage of these opportunities in the future.
• Risk to future growth: Changing circumstances including consumer needs, new
technologies, competitive activity, distribution changes or potential barriers to trade create
potential risk to your growth. Build your Brand Plans to minimize the impact of these risks.
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3. 1. The Category
The deep-dive process we recommend starts with digging in on the overall category, to help assess
the macro factors and
trends that are impacting
your brand today and
potentially in the future.
These factors include any
political, economic, social
and technology trends
impacting the category.
We recommend that you
look at related categories
because the trends they
see today could impact
your brand in the future.
First, look at both sales
dollars and sales units to
see if you spot any major trends happening. Dig in to see if you can explain any underlying drivers
of the major variances you are seeing—both increases and decreases. In our example, we are
seeing wide fluctuations with annual gains of +19% to -13.5%. You may even need to look at the 5-
year or 10-year trend line to see if this is consistent over time. Next, we look at the trend line on
category price, and compare to inflation rates of the region you compete in. In our case example
above, we see that price swings are not as dramatic as volume swings. We would recommend that
you summarize the factors driving category growth and factors holding the category back. Use your
knowledge you gain from digging in to help explain the ups and downs of the drivers and inhibitors
for each year.
The next important
dimension is to look at is
the regional
performance. Start by
understanding the
relative size of each
region and the relative
growth rates of those
regions. Many times,
regional investment will
follow a combination of
market size and growth
opportunity. We use two
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4. ways to look at the
importance and strength of
a region for your brand.
First, we look at your share
in the channel, relative to
your national business. Or
we use a development
index relative to either
population or a bigger
category that this sub-
category plays within.
Just as you did at the
macro level of the category,
you should summarize the
major drivers you are seeing
for each region. We also
believe it is important that you summarize your own brand performance within each region. This will
help in your brand plan as you decide on regional activity that either continues to drive growth or
close gaps that might exist. There are many other aspects of the category you should be looking at,
including product formats (size, flavors etc), distribution channels, benefit segments or competitors.
While working with
all available data is
the best place to
start, we also
recommend that
you analyze what
you can’t
necessarily see.
The tool we use is
a PEST analysis
that looks at the
macro trends that
are impacting the
category through
Political,
Economic, Social
and Technology trends.
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5. Here are 10 probing questions to kick-start your Category review
2. Consumers
The next area to dive deep is the consumer. Start by figuring out where you are playing, defining
who you are serving and who you aren’t serving. Define segments, look at buying habits, growth
trends, key insights for each segment. Gain knowledge by mapping out the buying system analysis,
leaky bucket, consumer perceptions through tracking data and research. We recommend that you
either use some type of panel/scan data if it is available or compile your own data through tracking
research. This helps determine what’s going on with consumer behavior beneath the surface. Our
preference is the brand funnel tracking tools as it maps out how well your brand is doing at each
stage of the consumer buying system.
1. How is the category doing relative to the
economy?
2. Look at the last 5 years and explain each of
the ups and downs in the category.
3. What is driving category growth? What is
holding the category back? What are the big
open opportunities to take advantage of?
What are the risks to the categories in the
next few years?
4. What category segments are growing,
declining or emerging?
5. What macro trends are influencing/changing
this category?
6. What’s the role of innovation? How fast
does it change? What innovations are
transforming the category?
7. What are you seeing in terms of regional or
geographic trends?
8. Who holds the balance of power in the
category: brands, channels or consumers?
9. Look at other issues: Operations, inventory,
mergers, technology, innovation.
10. What is the overall value of the category
How is the category performing financially?
Any price changes? Major cost change?
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6. How to use consumer tracking data
From the tracking or household panel data (Nielsen or IRI), you have to understand how your brand
is doing on both penetration and the buying rate, in order to fill in the simple equation of “Sales =
(Total Population x Penetration rate) x Buying Rate”.
A. Penetration Percentage: The percent of households who purchased a product, shopped in a
certain channel or retailer at least once during a measured period.
B. Buying rate or sales per buyer: Total amount of product purchased by the average buying
household over an entire analysis period, expressed in dollars, units or equivalent volume.
C. Purchase frequency or trips per buyer: Number of times the average buying household
purchases your product over a time period (usually a year). Purchase Frequency remains the
same regardless of which sales measure is used (dollars, units or Equivalent volume)
D. Purchase size or sales per trip: Average amount of product purchased on a single shopping
trip by your average buyer. Like the buying rate, purchase size can be calculated in terms of
dollars, units or Equivalent volume.
How to analyze your brand using Brand Funnels
Every brand should understand the details of their Brand Funnel, knowing what’s causing any
strength, weakness, changes versus last year or gaps versus competitors. A classic brand funnel
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7. should measure
awareness, familiar,
consider, purchase,
repeat and loyal. At the
very least, you should
be measuring
awareness, purchase
and loyalty. It’s not just
about driving particular
numbers on the funnel,
but about moving them
from one stage to the
next.
The first thing to do (see chart above) is look at the Absolute brand funnel scores (A), comparing
them to last year, to competitors or versus category norms. Then look at the brand funnel ratios
(B), finding the percent conversion from one stage to the next. To create the ratios, divide the
absolute number by the number above it on the funnel. For instance in the example below, take the
familiar score of 87% and divide it by the awareness score of 93% to determine the ratio conversion
of 91%. That means 91% of those who are aware become familiar.
The data becomes even more powerful when you start looking at the ratios of your brand in
comparison (C) to
the ratios of your
nearest competitor.
In this second part
of the analysis, the
ratio becomes the
focus. Compare the
ratios, finding the
gap (D) between
the two brands at
each of the stages.
You will start to see
where your ratio will
either be stronger or
weaker than the
comparison
brand. Analyzing the difference (E) between the 2 brands finds the biggest gaps and tells a
strategic story that explains the gap. Looking at the example, we see “Your Brand” and “Brand X”
are relatively similar at the top part of the funnel, but your brand starts to show real weakness as it
moves to repeat and loyalty. This creates a gap you need to fix through the Brand Plan.
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8. The brand funnel data helps tell where your brand sits on the Brand Love Curve. Indifferent brands
have skinny funnels throughout. Consumers treat these brands like commodities. Your Brand Plan
need to fuel awareness and consideration to kick-start the funnel. The next stage we call Like It
brands, which have funnels that narrow at purchase. These brands need a plan to close leaks by
getting their brand message closer to the purchase moment. The Love It type brands have a more
robust funnel, but may have a smaller leak at loyal. The plan should continue to feed the love and
build strength among loyalists. The most beloved brands have ideal funnels, but you should track
and build a plan that will attack any weakness before it is seen or exploited by others.
Market Research Studies
Market Research studies can really help uncover issues on your brand. Some brands keep looking
back at a study from 5 years ago, and miss out on the major changes that have happened in the
marketplace since. Market Research should provide a view of the who, what, when, where and how
behind the overall consumer dynamics of your category or market. They can help you understand
how consumer behavior and usage changes by brand, helping explain why consumers buy specific
brands and what it is that makes those brands distinctive, outlining the rational and emotional
benefits. They help identify any perceived gaps in the consumers mind between the brand promise,
consumer expectation and the overall brand performance. And, a good market research study can
provide an overall vantage of various consumer segments, looking at lifestyle and demographic
dimensions, how they consume media, overall attitudes on key drivers or brand benefits.
When we do our brand planning and marketing execution, we manage the executional tactics using
a consumer buying system that starts with the consumer and then maps out how they shop,
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9. closely resembling the brand funnel. This tool can really helps focus your activities to where your
brand needs the most help, either to continue fueling or closing a gap.
Here are 10 probing questions to kick-start your consumer review
1. Who are your possible target market
consumer segments? Are they growing?
How are you measuring them?
2. Who are the most motivated consumers by
what you have to offer?
3. Who is your current target? How have you
determined demographics, behavioral or
psychographic, geographic and usage
occasion? Generational trends?
4. How is your brand performing against the
target segment? Share, sales, panel data,
funnel data, tracking scores? By channel or
geography?
5. What drives consumer choice? What are the
main need states? How so these needs line
up to your brand assets?
6. Map out the buying system and assess your
brand’s performance in moving through
each stage. Are consumers changing at
stages? Are you failing at stages?
7. What are the emerging consumer trends?
How does your brand match up, to
potentially exploit? Where would your
competitors win?
8. What is the ideal brand experience and
unmet needs we can attach the brand to?
9. What are the emotional and functional
benefits? How is the brand performing
against them? How are you doing in tracking
studies to meet these benefits?
10. What are consumers’ perceptions of your
brand and your competitors?
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10. 3. Channels
A brand that understands the channels and customers can align the brand’s execution to the needs
of each major customer
group. Assess each
channel’s performance,
then drill down to your
major customers, analyzing
your sales, share and fair
share of the channel’s
marketing tools (ads and
displays). You need to
compare your brand to the
overall category or a direct
competitor to asses
your share of business by
each channel or customer.
Start with your market share and distribution percentage in each channel to give the first macro
view. You can assess some key insights from your sales team or directly from customers to match
up to the data you are seeing. From there, you can look at how the channel’s tools (displays and
ads) are being utilized by your brand. We use “fair share index” (FSI) which is your brand’s share of
activity divided by your overall market share. This enables you to see if you are under or over-
developed against a certain tool. Draw conclusions by comparing how you are doing in each
channel and versus other periods.
We recommend that you
create customer
scorecards for your
biggest customers. Start
with the performance of
that customer within their
competitive set. Map out
how you are doing with that
customer in terms of sales,
share or growth, then dig a
layer deeper by looking at
how you are doing on
pricing, co-op advertising
and merchandising/display
ratings.
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11. Then, you want to understand the main issues the channels are facing, brainstorming how to take
advantage of opportunities for your brand as well as avoiding the risks.
Here are 10 probing questions to kick-start your channels review
4. Competitors
We believe that brands have four choices: You have to be better, different, cheaper or not
around for very long. You need to find your point of difference to win. Brands that think they “don’t
have a competitor” are naive. Any blue ocean brand still steals money away from someone else and
if done well, a blue ocean brand just invites others to join in the near future.
What type of competitor are you? Are you a Power Player with the leadership position or a
Challenger brand that constantly pushes the leader? Or are you an Island type brand competing in a
space all by yourself, or a rebel brand going against the category norms? The worst thing is to be
considered a cluttered brand that is typically stuck in competitive dog-fights with no defined point
of difference, nothing to own and nothing that connects.
1. How are the channels performing? Are there
regional differences by channel? Are there
any channel shifts happening?
2. Are there new/emerging channels? Are there
existing channels not being developed?
3. What are the strengths/weaknesses of each
channel?
4. Do you understand the strategies of the
channel partners?
5. Do you have the competencies to service the
channel partners?
6. Who are your primarily and secondary
customers? Have you segmented and
prioritized on growth vs opportunity? How
large are they? What are their growth rates?
7. How is each channel performing?
8. How are brands doing within each channel?
What are the main reasons for each brand’s
channel strength/weakness?
9. Who is the category captain within your key
accounts and why?
10. Who are the top 5 customers? Main
strategies? How do we fit into that strategy?
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12. We recommend that you
dissect your closest
competitors looking at
positioning, pipeline,
pricing, distribution
differences, consumer
perception, strategies.
Chart
your competitors’ market
share over the past 5-10
years and analyze what you
think are the top 3 factors
driving and inhibiting their
success. Explain the ups
and downs whether it was
new launches, economic
impact, distribution changes or impact of other competitors.
When in a real competitive battle, map out the competitor’s brand plan as best you can: Vision,
Analysis, Strategies, Tactics and even assumed budget levels. By getting in the shoes of your
competitor, it will help you better understand their mindset, what moves they might make and how
they might attack you in the future. This can help you build in a counter-attack in your own Brand
Plan
Here are 10 questions to kick-start your competitor review
1. Who are the main competitors? How are
they positioning themselves?
2. What is their communication, new products
and go-to-market strategy? How are they
effectively executing against it?
3. What are the competitors operating models,
culture and organization? What brands are
they focused on as a company?
4. What are your competitor’s strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, threats?
5. How are they doing in terms of customer
share, market share, P&L, margins,
innovation, culture, regulatory advantage
6. Map out the competitors brand plan: vision,
goals, strategies and tactics.
7. What is the culture at your competitor and
what is the role of the brand in this culture?
8. What is the investment stance and the
expected growth trajectory of competitor’s
brand? How/where do they invest in their
brand What is the marketing and
commercial focus? What is their ROI?
9. What is the competitors brand strength/
equity? What drivers/attributes do they own?
10. Any public materials about the competitor,
including strategy and financial results?
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13. 5. Brand
Understand the view of your brand through the lens of
consumers, customers and employees. Use brand funnel data,
market research, marketing program tracking results, pricing
analysis, distribution gaps and financial analysis. You can also
use program tracking (Advertising Tracking) to show how well
you are doing behind key marketing activities. You will also be
able to get scores that match up to the brand funnel such as
awareness (aided, unaided), purchase scores (share of last 5
purchases), uniqueness and purchase intention.
We recommend that you look at the internal health and wealth as well as the external health and
wealth of the brand.
Start by looking at Brand Health
For your brand to determine “where are we?” you need to use brand health as a signal of the future
brand wealth. While the wealth measures can be seen easily, the deep-dive review helps to uncover
the health measures that you can’t always easily see.
• Internal Health: The company’s culture and every individual have to realize their impact of the
brand on the end customer. Is there an internal beacon that helps guide all employees to
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14. understand and live the brand? How much has been communicated about the strategy? Has the
idea of the brand been embedded right into the culture in a consistent manner?
• External Health: The connection with consumers becomes a source of power for brands. Use
the brand funnel to measure how your consumer sees your brand, looking at awareness, trial,
repeat to brand loyalty. Build on your strengths and attack your weaknesses before others do.
Here are 10 probing questions to assess your Brand Health
And use that knowledge to assess your Brand Wealth
• Internal Wealth: Everyone in the organization has to be focused on driving profit and value.
Brands are like assets with
intellectual properties,
culture, contracts, ownership
that help line up to deliver
the brand promise. Is there a
clear set of objectives that
help guide employees see
that they are contributing to
and sharing in the brand
wealth.
• External Wealth: Healthy
brands win in the market.
Beloved Brands can
leverage success into power
and drive wealth by driving
higher sales, market shares,
premium price points, lower costs, better margins, higher over all profits.
1. Where do you play? How do you win? What
is your current point of difference? Is it own-
able, unique and motivating for consumers?
2. What is your biggest gain versus prior
periods? What is your biggest gap?
3. What is your market share? Regionally? By
Channel? Where is your strength? Where is
your gap?
4. How are you doing on key brand tracking
panel data? Penetration? Frequency? Sales
per Buyer? Dollars per trip?
5. What are your scores against the brand
funnel?
6. How is your program tracking data doing?
Where could you improve?
7. How far can you “stretch” your brand into
other opportunities?
8. What is your current operating model?
9. What is your culture? To what extent does
your culture enable and support your brand
and business strategy? Is there an
alignment to the brand promise and strategy
by employees?
10. What is the new product development
process in the organization? What is the
innovative capability of the organization?
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15. When you dig in to the brand finance, the first thing we look at is Gross Margins (top-line profit)
which is the Sales Dollars minus the Product Costs. We look at the absolute number and the
percentages, then compare over time and versus other brands until we start to see a story. Strong
gross margins usually reflects consumer connectivity and power in the marketplace. The second
thing we look at is the Contribution Margins (bottom line profits), which is the Sales Dollars minus
Product Costs minus the Sales and Marketing Costs. Strong contribution margins are usually a sign
of how well the brand is run and how efficiently focused the Marketing is on the programs that
deliver. Finally, at the quick assessment stage, look at the sales growth versus the marketing spend
growth line. This is a good top-line look to see how the marketing programs are paying back over
time. These three questions should kick start you into asking 50 more questions.
Here are 10 probing questions to assess Brand Wealth
Use a Force Field type analysis to set up your plan
A Force Field analysis is best served for those brands in a sustaining position where marketing
plays the role of driving
innovation and creativity
within a box. Always
keep in mind that
Drivers and Inhibitors
are happening now. You
can see the impact in
the current year.
Anything in the future
gets moved down to
Opportunities and
Threats which are not
happening but could
happen.
1. Your CAGR? (Compound Annual Growth
Rate)
2. What are your contribution margins over last
5 years? Margins broken out by product line?
3. What is your budget breakout? Working
dollars versus non-working dollars? Media
versus production? Consumer versus trade?
4. Pricing Elasticity studies?
5. How are you performing overall and by line
of business?
6. What are your current brand/business
performance measures?
7. What programs are driving the highest ROI?
8. What is driving your profit? What are you
focusing on right now?
9. What are your forecasting error rates? Fill
rates?
10. What are the financial pressures you face?
Quarterly results?
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16. The force field can easily take the
issues you are gathering and turn them
into a Brand Plan. With the drivers, you
want to find a way to continue or even
enhance in the new Brand Plan. With
the inhibitors, you want to find ways to
minimize or reverse. Build plans that
take advantage of the opportunities
and minimize or eliminate any serious
threats.
Building a deep-dive Business Review presentation
When building your presentation for your management team, we recommend you use each of the 5
sections we have gone through here: Category, Consumers, Channels, Competitors and Brand. We
would normally expect to have 3-5 slides for each section, followed by a summary slide. For the
analytical slides, here’s some thoughts for a best-in-class slide. Build your story with an analytical
conclusion as your headline, then have 2-3 key analytical points of support for the conclusion with a
supporting visual or graphs. And finally, include an impact recommendation on EVERY slide.
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17. Beloved Brands: Who are we?
At Beloved Brands, we promise that we will make your brand stronger and your brand leaders
smarter. We can help you come up with your brand’s Brand Positioning, Big Idea and Brand
Concept. We also can help create Brand Plans that everyone in your organization can follow and
helps to focus your Marketing Execution. We provide a new way to look at Brand Management, that
uses a provocative approach to align your brand to the sound fundamentals of brand
management. We will make your team of Brand Leaders smarter so they can produce exceptional
work that drives stronger brand results. We offer brand training on every subject in marketing,
related to strategic thinking, analytics, brand planning, positioning, creative briefs, customer
marketing and marketing execution.
Beloved Brands Training program
At Beloved Brands, we promise to make your team of BRAND LEADERS smarter, so they produce
smarter work that drives stronger brand results.
1. How to think strategically: Strategic thinkers see “what if” questions before seeing solutions,
mapping out a range of decision trees that intersect and connect by imagining how events will
play out.
2. Write smarter Brand Plans: A good Brand Plan provides a road map for everyone in the
organization to follow: sales, R&D, agencies, senior leaders, even the Brand Leader who writes
the plan.
3. Create winning Brand Positioning Statements: The brand positioning statement sets up the
brand’s promise to the consumer, impacting both external communication (advertising, PR or in-
store) as well as internally with employees who deliver that promise.
4. Write smarter Creative Briefs: The brief helps focus the strategy so that all agencies can take
key elements of the brand plan positioning to and express the brand promise through
communication.
5. Be smarter at Brand Analytics: Before you dive into strategy, you have to dive into the brand’s
performance metrics and look at every part of the business—category, consumers, competitors,
channels and brand.
6. Get better Marketing Execution: Brand Leaders rely on agencies to execute. They need to
know to judge the work effectively to ensure they are making the best decisions on how to tell
the story of the brand and express the brand’s promise.
7. How to build Media Plans: Workshop for brand leaders to help them make strategic decisions
on media. We look at media as an investment, media as a strategy and the various media
options—both traditional and on-line.
8. Winning the Purchase Moment: Brand Leaders need to know how to move consumers on the
path to purchase, by gaining entry into their consumers mind, help them test and decide and
then experience so they buy again and become a brand fan.
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18. Graham Robertson at Beloved Brands
A NEW WAY to look at Brand Management.
Graham is one of the voices of the modern Brand Leader. He started Beloved
Brands knowing he could make brands stronger and brand leaders smarter.
Beloved Brands will challenge you to think strategically so you can create a
Brand Positioning, a Brand Concept and a Big Idea for your brand. Graham will
help write Brand Plans that focus everyone who work on the brand and make
your team of Brand Leaders smarter so they can produce better work
that drives stronger brand results.
Graham spent 20 years in Brand Management leading some of the
world’s most beloved brands at Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer,
General Mills and Coke, rising up to VP Marketing. Graham
played a major role in helping Pfizer win Marketing Magazine’s
Marketer of the Year.
His public speaking appearances inspire brand leaders to love
what they do. Over 4 million marketers have visited his
website,beloved-brands.com with the desire to become smarter.
Graham has served as a contributing author to Advertising Age in
the US and Marketing Magazine in Canada.
To contact Beloved Brands, email graham@beloved-brands.com
or call 416-885-3911. You can also follow us on Twitter @belovedbrands.
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