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Brand Strategy

Our award winning brand strategy research is based on a clear appreciation that brand strategy issues must be considered in their broader business context.

The practical experience that comes from owning and managing a growing business ourselves gives the senior directors who lead our brand strategy research a unique insight into the issues that relate to brand development in the service sector.

At the core of all brand strategy research is an aim to maximise the positive impact of your brand amongst its key stakeholder groups.

To learn more contact CEO, Cris Tarrant on 0207 400 1001, or Colin Shaddick on 0207 490 9103.

When launching a new brand there is a strong desire to reduce uncertainty in the balance between risk and reward.  Establishing the market potential for a brand is therefore a key strategic goal.

Winner of an MRS Award for ‘Applications of Research’, our work to do this for the Premier Inn hotel brand (in a project codenamed Shooting Star) led none other than the Chief Executive of Whitbread to comment that:

“Project Shooting Star has provided Whitbread with the market foresight to enable it to plan with confidence for the further expansion of Premier Inn in the UK” .Read more about 'Project Shooting Star'. 

Premier Inn is firmly established as the largest hotel brand in the country, with the potential for considerable future growth now communicated to investors, thanks to our research.

In new markets or with a new brand concept the ability to rely on ‘gut feel’ declines and, correspondingly, the importance of a thorough review of the business opportunity grows.

Brand stretch research, where we help clients determine the product categories that a brand can be extended to, is a long established area of specialisation. 

We worked with the Post Office on its development of travel related foreign exchange, a market that it now leads.  We helped a national supermarket retailer plot its move into financial services.  We contributed to the expansion of the National Trust into a series of affinity products. 

Similar brand stretch research has been conducted for the likes of Saga, the AA and ING.

Strategic brand research has a key role both in developing the ‘road map’ and helping to navigate the journey.  How does a brand meet the functional and emotional needs of its customers? What is its brand essence, what are its values, its key attributes, how does it perform?

All of this requires detailed understanding of the key stakeholders and how the brand matches up to the competition and to customer expectations.

We have two decades of experience helping organisations, such as HSBC, Marriott, TNT and WH Smith, obtain the market and customer insight essential to the management of their brands.  Research techniques of revelation and measurement both have their place.  We may use ZMET or our Brand Health Tracking but we won't approach your issues with a black box mindset. We will think carefully and creatively to ensure the proposed solution is tailored to your individual circumstances.

When it comes to corporate reputation management there may be a need to engage with numerous different stakeholder audiences.  At BDRC Continental we are familiar with capturing the views of many diverse groups. 

  • Investment relations – shareholders, City

  • Political communities, national and local

  • Media & opinion leaders

  • Local communities

  • Customers

  • Employees

  • Suppliers & partners

How do you measure and track the health of your brand and communications over time?

BDRC Continental provides bespoke brand health measurement services to a number of leading brands.

No two brand health measurement assignments are the same, but when it comes to brand equity and positioning, we consider it a fundamental premise that to add business value, any measurement of brand health must generate results that lead to marketing implications. 

With these principles in mind, BDRC Continental has developed its own variant of the brand health model.  This is a conceptual model that reflects the objectives of marketing activity and is tailored to the circumstances of individual clients, supplying 3 tangible measures:

  • Brand Health Equity Score 

  • Customer Advocacy

  • Latent Potential

 

We also recognise that brand health is about a range of constituent stakeholders.  We offer our clients the option to develop a brand scorecard, the key dimensions of which can be linked to a range of ‘real’ business performance indicators.

Communication of the brand and its values is an integral part of the development process for any brand.

Our pages on Brand Communications provide more details on how we work with clients on their communication strategies. 

We have particular experience in applying research techniques that contribute to the resolution of corporate brand identity dilemmas and the creation of powerful brand identities. 

Examples of our work include the following scenarios:

  • Brand switching and re-naming

  • Master/parent brand endorsement

  • Portfolio/umbrella brands and brand hierarchies

  • Brand logo development and re-fresh

  • Use of category descriptors and taglines to support brands

 

We have developed our own suite of investigative tools – the Corporate Identity Matrix – to explore specific identity design identity elements, such as colour, texture, font, holding shape and iconography.

Clients that have worked with us in the development of brand and product identities are as diverse as the likes of TNT, eBay, The Ramblers Association, Nationwide, Dunhill and Radisson.