At this time of year, business owners traditionally take the opportunity to plan and set goals for the next 12 months. We think about what we want to achieve, how much we want our business to grow, and what new customers we want to attract. We put our efforts into forward planning on how to be more visible in the market – how we can expand our marketing efforts so we get noticed above our competition.

Conducting a brand audit can be an essential part of these 12-month plans. Brands need to evolve over time to stay relevant, up-to-date and meaningful. A brand audit is a valuable chance to critically and objectively assess how effective your brand has been working for your business. Does it still connect with your customers in the right way? Is it communicating the right messages consistently, both visually and with language? Does it still tell your business’s story?

This process is hugely important because if your brand is not working for you, then any marketing or promotional spend will be ineffective too.

Veva conducts brand audits for a range of businesses. Let me step you through our brand audit process, using our client, Medical Accessories of Australia, as an example.

STEP 1. UNDERSTAND

First, we needed to gain a thorough understanding of what this business was all about – their vision, purpose, offering, target and unique benefits. We held an on-site meeting to discuss all this in detail.

STEP 2. REVIEW AND ASSESS

Next, we asked to examine their existing suite of marketing collateral and branding elements. This ranged from their logo and physical premises through to printed and electronic material, and their image library. It was our role to analyse how effective and aligned these pieces were to their overall vision and purpose.

We found a number of issues:

• With no brand guidelines in place, the logo was inconsistently used across all mediums
• Design styles and fonts were inconsistent
• There were significant colour variations in print reproduction
• Existing images were poor quality
• Support branding was limited
• Overall, the collateral was outdated, mismanaged and was letting the business down.

STEP 3. REPORT BACK

We reported our findings to Medical Accessories of Australia, detailing our observations about the effectiveness of each branding element. We outlined the areas that we found to be weak, and proposed our recommendations for the brand moving forward. These included:

• A new master logo suite
• A style guide detailing correct application, master colours and fonts
• Brand development establishing new look and feel, aligned to the brand story
• Project management of photo shoot for over 300 products to create a strong library of high-quality, authentic, custom branded products
• The rollout of multiple corporate and marketing materials consistently aligned to the brand

STEP 4. THE RESULT

Medical Accessories of Australia agreed with our findings and approved our recommendations. Veva was commissioned to develop the above elements. The result of Veva’s brand audit is perhaps best summed up by our client.

“It has been a really positive experience collaborating with Veva and seeing our vision come to life. Our brand has been enhanced by Veva who deliver clear and effective designs that our clients love.” John Holmes, Medical Accessories of Australia

So, as part of your marketing plan, consider undertaking a brand audit. It could make all the difference to reaching your future business goals.

Category tags: Branding