TEST YOUR SKILLS

Created by Baiba Matisone

 BAIBA MATISONE

Is a brand strategist who helps to connect brands to

culture and getting people to share their fears, hopes and
dreams

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TASK - INTRODUCTION
Every strategist loves brands. But of course, the perception HIGH QUALITY
of each brand is contentious. What one person find as
awesome is characterless for the other. Representing is not
always easy, but it is challenged every day.
Therefore, the most simplest question: What is your favorite
brand?

HIGH COST
LOW COST
Justify your choice in exactly one sentence.

● What are the three core values of the brand?

● Who are the three main competitors?
● What core values do they write on the flag?

Please locate your favorite brand and its three competitors

LOW QUALITY
on the positioning cross.

Source: JUNG v MATT

TASK - ANALYSIS OF A BRAND
To analyze a brand successfully you must first deconstruct it into its main characteristics.

A simple way to explore brand: Aspects that can be subject to analysis include:

1) Choose an existing brand ● The age and history of the brand. You can
2) Take each element in turn and research the meaning create a timeline
behind it ● The current market position
3) Document your finding and analysis by adding your ● The target market/consumer/audience
comments to the sheet and using arrows to define ● The existing brand properties
your points
4) Add additional information you find during research
to highlight the source of the meanings; this process
can also help to define your points.

This exercise is extremely useful as it helps in gaining a greater understanding of the depth of meaning necessary to develop a
successful brand.
TASK - CLIENT BRIEF
Your client is Peet's coffee.

The owner is planning on closing all stores on the west coast unless
each store increases its yearly revenue by 15%.

Your assignment is to:

1. Identify the problem/s (product, brand, comms, audience,

category) and articulate it back in an inspiring way
2. With the problem in mind, conduct and then present your research
plan on how you got to your problem
3. Write a creative brief for your (imagine) creative team that they
would use to come up with a campaign
4. (bonus): put a few creative ideas on paper
TASK - CLIENT BRIEF
Unfortunately, not every brand manages to maintain its status as an icon.
Most of the time it's because the company has made a bad decisions or
management fail to keep up with the times. That is why many brands are
losing the painstakingly built-up gloss over the years.

TASK:

Choose a brand from any category that meets the described situation. In
a personal conversation, explain what the company did wrong from your
point of view? What they need to change so they wouldn't go downhill
anymore?

Source: JUNG v MATT

TASK - CLIENT BRIEF
The CEO found $50 million dollar in his pocket.

He has 6 months to turn the brand around and has agreed to

use all of the found money for a marketing campaign.

What would you recommend as the best strategy and

creative wins?
TASK: HOW TO GO ABOUT FINDING THE REAL
PROBLEM
Ask many, many questions: you'll have the chance to ask clients about their creative brief and to ask consumers about their
hopes, dreams and fears.

Rephrase the problem: example: when an executive asked employees to brainstorm ways to increase productivity, he got blank
stares. But when he rephrased his request as ways to make their job easier, he couldn't keep up with the load of suggestions.

Challenge the assumptions that come in: remove bias, come up with different ways of looking at the category and provided
problem. Example, if you're working on a restaurant brand, don't assume they have a clear menu.

Fill your brain with goodness: this is great time to fill your mind with as much information about the current category,
competition, audience, historical advertising and product.
TASK - REVERSE ENGINEER
Watch the following campaign spots and try to reverse engineer the
creative idea down to a single strategic idea.

NOTE: you cannot use the tagline or key messaging points as the strategic
idea.

Volkswagen: Get In. Get Happy

Oreo: Wonder if I gave an oreo to you

Lowe's: Never Stop Improving

Tide: Talking Stain

Liberty Mutual Responsibility: What's your policy?

IKEA: Living Together

TASK - HEADLINE
Pretend these are your brands or choose whatever brand you like and try to think - what does a successful headline in the Wall street
journal would look like?
TASK - CONQUERING A NEW MARKET
This exercise involves taking an existing brand and redesigning it for a
new market.

After researching the brand and its current consumers, you must identity
the drive needed to make it appropriate to its new market. This will
involve firstly creating a range of ideas that would move the brand a
small way from its current position, followed by other concepts that
would take it on a more revolutionary journey.

You can explore you concept further by calculating your perception of the
amount of the change reflected in your “refreshed” brand.
TASK - CREATING A MOOD BOARD
The key to build a successful brand or communication campaign is to
understand your consumer/target audience in detail - their lifestyle,
needs and desires. To do that, I suggest you to create a mood board:

1. Consider a mood or feeling you would like to explore

2. Using a thesaurus, look for related words that will define audience
mood in more detail
3. Search for image on the Internet that express the emotion you are
trying to capture
4. Now design your board either by hand or on the computer using
package such as InDesign or Photoshop
TASK - CONSUMER-PROFILE BOARD
The Consumer/Audience:

● Who are you talking to?

● Why do you want to target them?

Consumer Profile Research:

● What are their needs, desires and aspirations?

● What and who influence them?
● What is their demographic group?
● What is their gender?
● What is their educational background?
● What is their occupation/economic status?
● Geographic location?
● What is their material status?
● What is their family size?
● Can you define their lifestyle?
● Can you define their attitudes and behavior?
TASK - COMPETITOR BRAND ANALYSIS
1. Start by choosing a brand to research. You can search the Internet for products and brands, or look through product
catalogues or trade magazines.

2. Identify 5 main competitors for your research. It is useful to ask somebody else to review your list of competitor brands to
ensure that the most important competitor brands are represented.

3. Compare all of the competing brands to discover the strengths and weaknesses of each one. Use the key questions listed
above to guide this analysis.

4. Add to this list one company that you consider to be the best example of a brand. This one does not necessarily need to be a
direct competitor, but if it is more relevant to your chosen brand this will help you to build useful data. This will be your
benchmark example of who you think is doing a good job of positioning themselves.
TASK - COMPETITOR BRAND ANALYSIS
5. Write up a short summary detailing all of the competing brands and
their overall market position.

6. Finally, add one more business - not necessarily a competitor, but one in
your brand's industry - that you think is not doing a great job at positioning
themselves. This will help you see what not to do with your brand
strategy.

7. If you want to carry this exercise further you can simply create a longer
list by searching for other brands to add to it. Doing this will also have the
benefit of showing you who else is out there, and what they are saying.
TASK - GENERAL vs. SPECIFIC QUESTIONS
Sometimes, general questions can be good. But most of the time, general questions lead to general answers. Your goal during a focus
group or in-depth interview (IDI) is to get your respondents to be more specific or to get them to draw on personal experiences and tell
stories about their lives, instead of giving vague explanations that rely on generalizations. Practice transforming the following general
questions into more specific questions that get people to speak about their personal experiences.

● Who do you typically turn to for relationship advice?

● How do you define convenience when it comes to shopping at a retailer?
● Have you ever tried to quit smoking
● Which factors cause you to switch from one retailer to another?
● When do you tend to snack the most?
● What kind of home improvement projects do you typically do around the house?
● Where do you usually look for promotional offers?
● How do you typically plan your vacation trips?
● Do you enjoy gambling?
● Are you a spender or a saver?
TASK - CLOSE-ENDED vs. OPEN-ENDED
QUESTIONS
A good discussion guide prompts people to tell stories, not just answer questions. Practice transforming the following close-ended
questions into open-ended questions so that your respondents will be more likely to open up and tell stories. In some cases, you can
also use the close-ended questions as a starting point to a more compelling follow up question.

● Have you ever sent a text message while driving?

● Did you find everything you were looking for during your last shopping trip?
● Would you say you travel abroad frequently?
● Do you post a lot pictures on Facebook?
● Do you prefer to shop at big boxes or locally owned stores?
● Are you an early adopter when it comes to technology?
● How often do you eat sweets?
● Do you tend to buy things that are on sale?
TASK - CUSTOMER JOURNEY
Choose one of your favorite brands and create a customer journey
map after one of the templates that you will find under the link.

Prepare your answers to the key questions:

● How well does the experience measures up to the

consumer's needs and expectations?
● Does each customer interaction live up to the experience
that the brand is trying to deliver?
● Does the brand deliver a more consistent and relevant
experience than its main competitor(s)?
● Which interactions are the most powerful in creating
customer loyalty?
TASK - MEETING WITH CLIENT
At the meeting, you're reframing client, so it's very important to
understand and read people to better know who is the key person.

Take notes and read body language to better understand who influences
who?

The best place/location: a hard conversation between agency and client

One golden rule to be a good strategist - you need to understand

crowds, agencies, and clients politics. You need to have your own
philosophy on how advertising works and it's important for yourself to
know how to sell yourself. Additional information:
Pease, A., Pease, B. “Body language”
TASK - AGENCY AS YOUR OWN BUSINESS
For better self-development, it is very important to make agency as your
own business. Your aim is:

● to understand how to get the money for the agency?

● how to get a offer from the client?
● how to make friends/good contacts on client side?
● where the agency is wasting money/energy?
● when and where to come in with your own ideas? Analyse the
project timeline - it's a golden window where to sell the ideas(!)

Build your own network, your back-channels. Build those relations as

much as possible. Text messages, lunch, beer - it's really important to
build relations with key people who influence decision making process.
You need to be on text message level with them. What level of relations
can you get? Than you can push whenever you need.

Additional information:
Carnegie, D., “How to win friends and Influence people”
TASK - SELL YOUR OWN IDEAS
One of the toughest questions in your carrier - how will you gonna sell
your work to the client?

You need to think about this tricky question all the time. To do that you
need to really understand where your client stands.

Two methods to uncover your client:

1) AIDA/old method - surveys and focus groups: questioning about

advertising;
2) The dual process model/new method - emotional understanding
of branding.

Additional information:
Gallo, C., “Talk like TED”
Acker, M., “Speak with no fear”
TASK - DOCUMENT THE STRATEGY PROCESS
Blogs can be a very useful way for you to document your strategy
process. Clear rules as to how these processes are structured will make
reviewing and assessing easier for Senior Strategists.

The strategy process can be used to support findings. You can also
include commentary, conclusions and clear justification of your strategy
decisions, as well as supporting information of reference material and
personal creative content.

For inspiration:
“Developing your own planning style” by Richard Huntington
TASK - TEST YOUR CURIOSITY
Good strategists are not only aware of the world-moving issues of our
time, but always have their immediate environment in mind. This is
important because the everyday observations you make are often the key
to moving creations.

TASK: Show that you have a sense of what is happening around you and
you are walking the world with your eyes open. Explain briefly an exciting
observation that you have recently made (for example in the subway) and
you can not get out of your head.

Source: JUNG v MATT

TASK - FIND AN INSIGHT
The advertising industry is experiencing a new era: consumers are
leaving thousands of traces online, from which you can gather valuable
information. Your task is to find these digital traces, analyze them and
generate data-based insights.

TASK: Identify an exciting insight from the existing brand campaign. For
your research, use freely accessible tools from the Internet to prove your
findings. Justify your insight. Be creative - there is no right or wrong.

Free tools that can help you are e.g. Google Trends, b4p, fanpage Karma,
SimilarWeb, AnswerThePublic, etc.

Additional information:
Research platforms

Source: JUNG v MATT