Marketing Strategy

In brief

Project examples

Brand auditing and the creation of a restructuring strategy for a global cosmetics manufacturer

Cosmetics Company A, which sells a dominant global brand, was faced with the declining performance of its luxury Brand B. The company thus decided to conduct a brand audit and revitalization project in order to understand B’s positioning and differentiation vis à vis the competition, understand target consumers’ current needs and identify issues.

Roland Berger utilized its “rb profiler” to help Company A objectively grasp consumer needs and their image of the brand. The main finding was a huge gap between consumer needs and B’s brand image. Indeed, this image was weak overall, with B lacking the image of “freshness” and “passion” that a cosmetic product should boast in terms of sensibility. Moreover, Brand B had a strong image of being reasonably priced – something completely inappropriate for a luxury brand, On the other hand, strongly performing competing brands had clear brand images and matched consumer needs to a high degree.

What was behind this situation? As the “rb profiler” makes it possible to visualize advertising and direct marketing activities as well as sales activities, we analyzed these. It soon became clear that several factors had combined to adversely affect brand image. For example, the same language had long been used in advertising for Brand B and there had been insufficient change in the Brand B product line. Behind this lay inconsistency in the internal perceptions of the brand’s current situation and miscommunication among the parties concerned.

Upon hearing the results, Company A created a plan to revitalize Brand B. It set the brand image goal and designed a marketing strategy and action plans to realize that goal. Meanwhile, discussions among the concerned parties proceeded smoothly and it was possible to both establish a shared understanding and keep miscommunication in check by using the “rb profiler” as a common language within the company.