The result of the study is to help the company in defining and creating a brand identity. In the conclusion, the current image of the Movenium brand is presented, the identity of the brand is defined and concrete recommendations are given.
Company background
Needs and objectives of the study
The recommendations given through this graduation project will be implemented by the company to get real solutions while conducting the international business. The purpose of the study will be to follow up the implementation process, if the schedule allows, and will be able to highlight the benefits of this study.
Research problem
This study will give the company Movenium the concrete product "Brand Identity", which they can use by expanding their marketing and sales functions in international markets.
Why the selected thesis topic is important for the organization
I will use the Brand Identity Planning Model (BIPM), Figure 1, by David Aaker to provide the theoretical framework. This research excludes Aaker's brand identity implementation system because my research is focused on the creation of brand identity.
What is a brand?
What constitutes a brand?
A brand is not just limited to a visual appearance, but reflects the company's value proposition to customers. A brand consists of the company's values, employees, customer service, the creative approach and the overall offer to the target group.
A brand is more than a product
Brands sell not only because of their price, functionality and product features, but also because of emotional factors.
Foundational theories
The brand identity system
Value proposition is a statement of the functional, emotional and self-expressive benefits delivered by the brand that provide value to the customer. To gain the understanding, customers must examine the brand identity and evaluate whether the self-expressive benefits are satisfactory.
Brand positioning elements
Building a conceptual tool for brand image analysis
External analysis: customer
Internal analysis: self/company
Strategic brand analysis for this research will be done in two phases: in the first phase, the brand image is analyzed internally using qualitative research method and customer analysis is done with the help of the surveys in order to analyze the brand image of Movenium from the external perspective. analyze. The questionnaire and the survey (See chapter 3 for details) for this purpose were designed taking into account the external and internal analysis discussed above. The second phase will discuss the target brand identity, value proposition and brand-customer relationship in the discussion chapter considering the theory and findings.
First, the methodology and methods used will be discussed, followed by a detailed description of the variables in the questionnaire and survey. The data collection will then be investigated and the reliability and validity of the study will be judged in chapter 5 discussion.
Research methodology and method
This chapter explains the methods and methodology used to answer the objectives of this research project. The first round of interviews was conducted within the company 5 respondents (see attachment 1), representing the total population, mainly working within the marketing and sales function to understand the current image of the company/brand. Based on that data, another round of discussions, mainly surveys, was sent to the largest 17 customers of the existing customer base to get information to help answer my research question.
The questionnaire
The survey
The survey questions were written in English, but also translated into Finnish because most of the customers were from construction companies in Finland, and their business language is Finnish. Together with the company, we decided to send the survey via the survey tool, SurveyMonkey, which is used by the company to conduct customer satisfaction surveys. Surveys can be built according to your own choice or can also choose from the available templates, we used a very simple template in this research.
In this research, we emailed a survey to a select customer base, collected responses using one convenient URL by including a link in emails, and presented the results using bar graphs for an at-a-glance comparison. The survey was sent on behalf of the thesis researcher (me) via company e-mail.
Presentation of data
In this chapter findings of the study are introduced and discussed based on the collected data. The purpose of the discussion was to examine the company's brand image, interview was divided into two themes: company-related questions and the internal brand image. Both the views are presented in the following subchapters where the findings are discussed and later the thorough discussions are done and recommendations are made based on them.
Interview results
I don't think many people in the company know about the background of the company's name and history. The marketing channels that the company currently uses are presented below in figure 4. Understanding the current brand image in the company was an important objective of the interviews conducted.
Here are some insights about the area, Movenium, just a name one/two people gave to the company. Major dilemma faced by the company is to publicize the company or publicize the product brand.
Survey results
According to the findings, the current brand image of Movenium appears to be positive both internally and externally, although the understanding of the brand is not very clear within the company. As discussed in the findings, if the company had more time, money and human resources to work on the brand, most of the interviewees mentioned that they would make changes to the marketing materials, new web pages, and renaming the products or logos. , etc. important for Movenium to understand that branding is not only about the marketing tools and channels, but it is very much about the company values, the benefits it offers and the message delivery to the customers and above all the relationship between Movenium and its customers.
During the interviews, I got the feeling that the brand Movenium does not exist, it is just a name given to the company by one or two people. Externally (among clients), Movenium is known for the benefits it provides to clients and is considered a trusted and reliable partner in efficiency.
Current brand image
Internal brand image
Brand Essence (Brand Spirit): listening to customers, risk takers - doing things in new ways without harming the business, providing customized time tracking solutions for customers. They are professionals at tracking work time and want to focus marketing on products. They have shifted their focus from serving only the domestic market to expanding into international markets in 2008 under the company name Movenium.
They are the company that goes with the flow, in 2010 they focused on R&D, the focus was on sales, today their focus was on marketing and later on it would be branding. The company has been working on a needs-based model, I think for the new company trying to get into business, this strategy works best.
External brand image
Along with defining and building a brand identity for Movenium, I promised to recommend the channels to introduce the brand in Finland as well as in international markets. To ensure that I could provide some recommendations, I inquired about the current marketing tools used by the company. Now that we are getting closer to answering the research question, I would like to explain the two concepts used in this study: the brand image and the brand identity.
I found a very good quote from an online source that caught my attention: “Focus on the brand identity, the brand image will follow” (Management Study Guide, 2012.) In this study, the brand identity for Movenium is created by considering Aaker's Brand Identity System. The next chapter addresses the answer to the research question and describes the brand identity of Movenium.
Brand identity of Movenium
- Elements of the core identity
- Elements of the extended identity
- Value proposition
- Brand customer relationship
The most powerful aspect of the extended identity is the brand personality; it is defined as a set of human characteristics that are associated with a brand. The customer needs to feel the benefits they get from Movenium in order to connect with the brand. According to Aaker, emotional benefits are consistent with a brand's essence, core, and extended identity because benefits act as a promise that a brand offers to customers.
The self-expression benefits are important in the brand identity, because they enable the customers to express themselves through the brand. If the message of the brand is not coherent with the brand identity and the communicated personality, the relationship will change in the customer's mind.
Recommendations
- Recommendations on general brand identity
- Recommendation on marketing channels
- Recommendation on working with the brand with limited resources
- Implementation of the recommendations
- Limitations
The company must focus on a shared understanding of the brand, its values and the benefits it offers to customers. Sales force: is the face of the company to the customer, acquires a lot of knowledge about what the customer needs and wants. This knowledge needs to be shared within the company in order to respond to invisible customer demands.
The interviews were considered a good exercise for thinking about the company's brand image and brainstorming. Due to the limitations of the thesis, I could only focus on understanding the current brand image and creating the company's Brand Identity.
Validity and Reliability
In the future, perhaps we could focus more on the industry in question and the SME aspect of it. For example, highlighting the importance of branding in SMEs by taking examples of companies that have benefited from brand management and perhaps Movenium could be one of the example companies. The results of the survey are presented by reference to the tables generated by the survey tool.
The discussion of research validity brings us to the crucial question of quality: the value of truth. According to this opinion, validity has been achieved in this research as the interviewees are experts in the field and were interviewed according to the flexible rules of thematic interviewing.
Conclusions
Reflections on learning
I had to change the topic of my master's thesis three times and finally I got to work on "Creating a brand identity for Movenium for international markets". Branding was an interesting area for me to work in as I come from a marketing and communications background. I started working on a practical problem of the company, which gave me the opportunity to really solve the problem and apply the theory.
URL: http://blog.questionpro.com use-this-easy-brand-audit-survey-template-before-you-put-your-marketing-plan-together/.
List of interviews
Questionnaire Brand Image
Brand associations are anything that people associate or associate with the brand in their minds. Apple is considered new, while IBM is considered old, Coca-Cola is considered real and authentic, while Pepsi is new, vibrant and exciting, and Dr.Pepper is unique and fun. What would you do differently for the brand if you had more time, money or human resources.
Thesis survey email to Movenium Customers
Survey Questionnaire
