Competitor Brand Analysis

Definition

A competitor brand analysis is the digital branding work product produced during the competitor brand analysis task that documents the results of the development organization’s analysis of the competitor organizations’ existing brands.

Objectives

The typical objectives of a competitor brand analysis are to:

• Document the current brand of the customer organization’s business competitors.

Benefits

The typical benefits of a competitor brand analysis are:

• It provides the foundation on which to base the new digital brand.
• It is a source of branding information to either emulate or avoid.

Contents

The typical contents of a competitor brand analysis include:

• Competitors and their Competing Brands For each competing Brand:
  • Competitor Name
  • Competitor’s Brand Identity that clearly identifies its business enterprise to both its external and internal stakeholders, which defines:
    • Logo This includes the content, standard colors (including graytones), default and minimum size, standard font, screen and page placement, and rationale of the brand’s logo.
    • Trademark This includes the standard font face, colors (including graytones), default and minimum size, screen or page placement, and rationale of the brand’s trademark, salesmark, or tag line.
    • Brand Typography This includes the standard font face, colors, default and minimal font size, screen and page placement, and rationale for the brand’s typography.
    • Brand Sounds This includes any standard branding sounds (e.g., jingles, recordings of spoken tag lines) and their rationale.
    • Brand Messages (a.k.a., Brand Associations) This includes brand messages describing:
      • The Business Enterprise (e.g., a competent and successful business)
      • What the business enterprises does (e.g., it runs the premier online office supply e-marketplace.)
      • The User’s Value Proposition (e.g., it empowers its users to easily and safely buy and sell the office supplies over the Web.)
      • The Core Beliefs and Values of the business enterprise (e.g., user success, quality products, reliable service, credibility, trust, and dependability)
    • Brand Personality (a.k.a., Brand Aura) This includes the:
      • Brand Tone and Voice (e.g., serious, businesslike, technical, fun)
      • Brand Look and Feel (e.g., clean, complete)
      • Brand Metaphors
  • Brand Comparison:
    • Competitor Brand Stengths, Weaknesses, and Differentiators
    • Customer Brand Stengths, Weaknesses, and Differentiators
    • Customer Brand Opportunities and Risks
  • Conclusion
  • Appendices:
    • Major Issues
    • TBDs
    • Assumptions

  Stakeholders

  The typical stakeholders of a competitor brand analysis are:

  • Producers:
    • Digital Branding Team
  • Evaluators:
    • Strategy Inspection Team
  • Approvers:
    • Technical Leader
    • Project Manager
    • Customer Representative
  • Maintainers:
    • Digital Branding Team
    • User Experience Teams
  • Users:
    • Digital Branding Team, which uses it to develop the digital brand strategy.
    • User Experience Teams, which uses it to develop the digital brand prototype and when designing application human interfaces.

  Phases

  • Business Strategy: Completed
  • Business Optimization: Maintained
  • Initiation: Maintained (or Completed if not completed earlier)
  • Construction: Maintained
  • Delivery: Maintained
  • Usage: Maintained
  • Retirement: Archived

  Preconditions

  A customer brand analysis typically can be started if the following preconditions hold:

  • The business strategy phase has started.
  • The digital branding team has been staffed and trained in the competitor brand analysis task.

  Inputs

  The typical inputs to a competitor brand analysis include:

  • Work products:
    • Competitor organization’s Mission Statement
    • Competitor organization’s Core Values Statement
    • Competitor organization’s existing branding documentation:
      • Corporate identity materials
      • Corporate logo
      • Corporate letterhead and business cards
    • Market Analysis
    • Customer Brand Analysis
  • Stakeholders:
    • Branding domain experts
    • Competitor organization marketing personnel
    • Digital Brand strategist

  Guidelines

  • Only produce this work product if:
    • The customer organization currently has a brand strategy and definition.
    • A new digital brand strategy is to be produced.
  • This is a living document that is developed incrementally and iteratively in parallel with other documents (e.g., Customer Brand Analysis).

  Conventions

  A competitor brand analysis is typically constrained by the following conventions:

  • Inspection Checklist

  Examples

  • Example Competitor Brand Analysis

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