Leveraging brand value in a recession.

1. A Survivors
Guide
To Leveraging
Brand Value In a Recession

2. 1 Review your Brand Portfolio
Take a look at the brand assets that
you have as part of your business to
determine what is really valuable and
what is not; what could be phased
out, what should be kept and identify
how you might reinvigorate them.

3. Review
your Brand Portfolio

4. 2 Manage your Message
Reflect the new customer mindset.
Shift your advertising message,
shift funds to product lines that are
suited to an economic downturn,
stress quality and value, and unveil
new uses for old brands.

5. Manage
your Message

6. 3 Enhance Customer
Insight
In a downturn, companies may see
research as expendable.
Understanding your customers
needs at this moment is even more
critical. You should protect your
budget and preserve the longer
term projects concerning innovation
and trends in the market.
Your business must know where your
customers are going, what they are
thinking -this will allow you to come
through the downturn in a better
competitive position.

7. Enhance
Customer Insight

8. 4 Internal Brand Supports
Review ways in which the stronger
brands in the portfolio (or the
stronger businesses) could support
the marketing efforts of the weaker
brands or weaker businesses. Now
is a good time to determine if every
subtle brand distinction actually
matters to customers

9. Internal
Brand Supports

10. 5 Evaluate and Re-focus
Be critical and review every
unnecessary product brand,
sub-brand or program brand.
Sometimes business units have a
habit of creating new brands for
reasons other than for the benefit of
customers or the bottom line.

11. Evaluate
and Re-focus

12. 6 Build on Existing Equities
Having identified which brands
enjoy the strongest customer loyalty,
companies should explore ways
of further leveraging these brands.
Product line extensions as well as
adopting a ‘brand position’ can be
especially powerful as efficient ways
of unlocking brand potential.

13. Build on
Existing Equities

14. 7 Don’t Compromise on Your
Brand Promise
There might be temptation to cut
back on product quality or service
quality. If you lose confidence in
your brand’s promise, customers
are often the first to realise and take
notice of this.

15. Don’t
Compromise
on Your Brand Portfolio

16. 8 Don’t Discount Accrued
Brand Value
You’ve worked hard to establish
brand value. Resist the temptation
to use price to maintain volume and
targets.
Focus on consistency and revenue
rather than volume. It will cost
much more to reverse the negative
impression of discounting after the
event than what accrues to your
business in the short term.

17. Don’t
Discount
Accrued Brand Value

18. 9 Keep Communicating
Don’t stop communicating with
your customers. In a downturn,
people don’t stop buying; they just
buy more thoughtfully.
Take advantage of the general
decrease in marketing spending to
grab a larger share of voice and
define yourself in a less cluttered
marketplace. In good times, the
best tactic may be advertising,
but now is the time to evaluate less
traditional ways of communicating
with your customers.

19. Keep
Communicating

20. 10 Define Minimum
Standards of Upkeep
It is important to understand what
brand investment must be sustained
in order to protect your asset.
The amount required to retain
your brand’s value is money worth
spending.

21. Define
Minimum Standards
of Upkeep

22. 11 Moving Forward
Economic downturn presents an
opportunity to uncover sources
of value that once identified and
managed, will benefit the company
when the economy recovers.

23. Moving
Forward

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