Dissecting the anatomy of brands: Improving methodologies for strategic brand-building

Abstract

As marketplaces, media and technologies change, methodologies for dissecting the anatomy of brands have required refinement and evolution. This paper presents three new strategic methodologies. Brand audit methodologies include analysis of existing architectures and touchpoints in order to identify perception gaps between brand custodians and target audiences, and then define future-proofed architectures. Decoding visual, verbal and sensory brand elements, and analysing their validity in existing and potential executions aids in defining future creative evolution. Competitive brand analysis examines how target audiences and stakeholders recognise and engage with brands by decoding visual, verbal and sensory brand elements. Such methodologies enable more strategic direction of creative processes to claim unique and defensible points of difference. Brand Anatomy (a trade mark of Cato Partners) strategically maps brands, programmes, architectures, target audiences and touchpoints under a bird's-eye view. This new methodology identifies the formulation, structure, function and relationship of multi-faceted brands.