Brand strategy (PBL 4)

The problem we found during the fourth PBL is brand strategy. The learning objectives to this problem are:

1. What are the brand strategy processes behind strong brands? Explain by example.
2. What are the steps of a repositioning process behind strong brands? Explain by example. 

Brand strategy processes
According to socialmediau.net, the brand strategy process looks like this:

This brand strategy process will be explained by using the example of Albert Heijn, a Dutch supermarket.

Research
Brand audit
The purpose of a brand audit is to gain a fundamental understanding of where your brand stands in its current state. It is like a health test of your brand.
Albert Heijn is known as a more luxury supermarket. The prices of Albert Heijn are not the lowest, but people are willing to buy the products, because of the good quality and exclusivity of the products.

Business objectives
Albert Heijn wants to be the best supermarket in the neighbourhood for everyone. More information about their business objectives can be found under 'Strategy'.

Stakeholder analysis
The most important stakeholder for Albert Heijn is the customer, while this is the person Albert Heijn is working for.
Another important stakeholder is the employee. Albert Heijn wants their employee to know that they are loved and important. Without employees, Albert Heijn can not achieve what they want to achieve.
Other important stakeholders are suppliers, partners and neighbours.

Market analysis
Albert Heijn is the market leader: their market share is 35%. Albert Heijn distinguishes themselves with different formulas for each supermarket. For example, they use one formula for the small villages and another for the big cities.

Strategy
Albert Heijn wants to be the supermarket for everyone: young and old, poor and rich. They also want to help the customer to choose for a better life. To define what a better life is, Albert Heijn wants to be in dialogue with their customers, their employees and their partners.
Albert Heijn wants to be loved and distinguishes themselves in the field of health. The customer is the most important thing for Albert Heijn.
Long story short: Albert Heijn wants to be the best supermarket in the neighbourhood. They want to achieve this to be better every day for the customer, the employee and the neighbour.

Design
Albert Heijn has a unique logo. They also have a typical design for the 'better every day' strategy. When they communicate with their employees about this strategy, they use the colours of this design.

Touchpoints
Albert Heijn has different touchpoints.
First of all, there is the website. On this website, customers can search for all the products Albert Heijn offers. They also can make a list for their grocery shoppings and search for recipes.
Another touchpoint is the commercials via TV and radio. The commercials were very successful because Albert Heijn used the same person in each commercial. Watch it yourself below.

Another touchpoint is the personal 'bonuskaart'. Via this card, the customer has different discounts on products. Besides the discounts who are valid to everyone, each customer also has some personal discounts. Via e-mail Albert Heijn let the customers know which personal discount they have.

Assets
Albert Heijn says that they have the best service and that they are really kind and good to the customer. This is a way how Albert Heijn manages their assets.
The last few years Albert Heijn kind of changed their brand identity. The customer is still the most important thing for Albert Heijn, but they also want to be good for the environment by selling fair trade brands (unfortunately this failed), selling biological products and trying to be better every day.
Albert Heijn communicates their brand strategy via the ways mentioned under touchpoints.

Repositioning process
According to Gregory Pollack onsegmentationstudyguide.com, the repositioning process is a four-phased process:

1. Determining the current status of the brand.
2. What does the brand stand for today?
3. Developing the brand positioning platforms. 
4. Refining the brand positioning and management presentation. 

This four-phased process will help guide the company through the process and allow the company and the brand group to best calibrate based on timing, budget, and resources to get the job done.
The example that is going to be used to explain this process is a brand of Albert Heijn.

Determining the current status of the brand
The brand of Albert Heijn was called "Puur&Eerlijk", which means Pure&Honest. With the name of this brand, Albert Heijn suggested that it was biological as well as it was fair trade. The customer was more and more interested in fair trade and biological food so with this brand, Albert Heijn tried to connect with the customer. They also wanted to distinguish themselves from the competition. At first, this all worked out pretty well for Albert Heijn. After a while, people found out that it was not true what Albert Heijn was selling: the brand pretended to be green and good for the world, but most of the products were not fair trade at all. Therefore, Albert Heijn was forced to stop or change the brand. Albert Heijn chose to change the name of the brand to "Biological". The products of this brand are just biological and not fair trade.

What does the brand stand for today
At first, the customers did not trust the brand "Biological", because the brand Pure&Honest was not pure and honest at all, so why should the customer trust Albert Heijn that the brand "Biological" is biological?
Luckily for Albert Heijn, there are different labels which say if a product is really biological. Below you can see the labels which are on an Albert Heijn biological product and which prove that the product is really biological.

Due to this labels, the customers are sure that the products are biological and therefore the products sell really well now. People are convinced that biological products are better for themselves and for the world, so they want to buy it. Albert Heijn did a good job to have this biological brand because due to this brand they can connect with what the customer wants.

Developing the brand positioning platforms
During this phase, three questions have to be answered:

• Who do we want our brand to be?
• What benefits will it deliver to the consumer?
• How will we promote this brand product purchase, collection, and user patterns?

First of all, Albert Heijn wants their brand "Biological" to be truly biological because they did not a great job with Pure&Honest and they have to make up for that.
The customers are more and more interested in biological food, so the benefit for the customer is that Albert Heijn now offers biological products.
The promotion of this brand was done really well. In all the supermarkets of Albert Heijn, there were huge signs where to find the biological products. The commercial of Albert Heijn also shows what the biological products look like. Thereby, the commercial shows different farmers who provide the biological products. It is shown how much they love their job and how good they are for their animals. After seeing the farmers, the commercials shows different customers who are very happy with the brand. By means of this commercial, Albert Heijn tries to convince the customer that this brand is really biological and that the customer can be sure that it is true this time.

Refining the brand positioning and management presentation
The most important thing in this phase is to ensure that the communication to the customer is consistent. Therefore, all employees and partners have to feel the same way about the brand. Albert Heijn did this by having different meetings in each supermarket for the employees. During this meeting, the employees were told that this brand is truly biological and they also got more information about the brand. This was helpful, because if a customer had any questions about the brand, the employees were able to answer them in the same way.
The partners and suppliers of Albert Heijn were also informed about the new brand. Most of the partners and suppliers visited the different farmers to be sure that the brand was truly biological.

Sources
Pollack, G. (2008), The power of brand repositioning: a four-phased process, accessed 20 September 2016, from http://www.marketingprofs.com/8/power-of-brand-repositioning-four-phased-process-pollack.asp

Socialmediau.net (2016), SMU 101 session 4: intro to brand strategy, accessed 16 September 2016, from http://socialmediau.net/course-menu/intro-to-branding/15-smu101-session4-brand-strategy