Imc Audit

Marketing Tools, September 1997, p. 64-67

Front-end Alignment: Auditing to Make the Brand Relationship-Building Process More Effective and Efficient

by Tom Duncan and Sandra Moriarty

In recent years, companies have found that traditional evaluation research, such as tracking studies, sales and share reports, and customer satisfaction studies, no longer provide sufficient input for their marketing plans. The solution is to look at the upfront processes and develop methods that improve the alignment between the front end of the marketing planning process and the desired output.

With today's marketplace conditions, emphasis must now be placed on retaining and growing the value of existing customers, as much as on acquiring new ones. Consequently, companies are setting up cross-functional processes and making other structural changes to better manage brand relationships. This means there is an increaisng need to audit these internal processes tomake sure that they are, in fact, integrated, and operating efficiently and effectively.

There are two basic ways to evaluate to how a company is managing its business. One is output controls such as tracking studies, copytesting, sales figures, and basic marketing research studies. The other is process controls. Although process controls such as financial audits have been used for years, few companies have a system for auditing the processes they use for managing brand relationships. The importance of process management has also been stimulated by TQM and ISO 9000 standards. Both require companies to continuously monitor all their processes and procedures in an ongoing effort to improve them.

Recognizing this, we designed the Integrated Marketing (IM) Audit and made it a key component of the integrated marketing communication's (IMC) graduate program at the University of Colorado . (Because our audit evaluates more than just the production of marketing communication messages, we call it an integrated marketing [IM] audit rather than an IMC Audit.)

An Objective Opinion

IM Audit findings should be used in conjunction with customer satisfaction and other types of output controls. In other words, an audit should not be used in place of, but in addition to, traditional output controls.

An IM audit should be done by an outside, objective team and should be a census (not just a sample) of the managers of all departments impacting on brand relationships. At the audit orientation meeting with top management, the audit instruments are reviewed and customized to fit the organization's structure and needs.

The objectives and benefits of the IM Audit are self-evident in the following explanation of the audit tools. These include three basic interviewing instruments, as well as a variety of optional tools depending on the type of business and how in-depth the organization wants the audit to be.

1. Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices Questionnaire This questionnaire determines the respondents' knowledge of the marketing and marketing communication plans and targeted audiences. Answers to these questions are then compared to what employees are actually working to accomplish. Specifically, this instrument evaluates the following areas and conditions:

Objectives. What are the target/stakeholder priorities? Which stakeholders are most important? Is there agreement on communication objectives and the brand's positioning among the various marketing groups/departments/ functions? Does the objective-setting process include everyone who contributes to creating messages? What are the key messages for each of the target audiences?

Organization. How much agreement exists among and within the groups on the responsibilities of the various marketing communication departments/functions? How is coordination managed? Who is responsible for coordinating communication efforts? To what extent is managing brand relationships a cross-functional process?

Customer Databases. To what extent do customer databases exist within the organization? How accessible are they, and how often are they used? What are the procedures for caputring customer dialogue and other interactions? Is there sharing of databases, market research findings, and other types of planning information?

Contact Points. Are these identified? What messages are being sent? Are they consistent? Do they amount to a strategy? Are these experiences measured and analyzed? Who controls them?

Integration. What's the brand's current level of integration? What are the advantages and disadvantages of integraton? What are the major barriers to being more integrated?

Outside Agencies. To what extent are marketing communication agencies involved in strategic planning? How much communication/sharing of ideas is there among clients' agencies?

Interactivity. How far has the company moved into interactive, two-way communication with customers?

Planning. Does the organization use zero-based planning, especially for annual and short-term programs? To what extent are objectives based on some kind of prioritized SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunitites, Threats) analysis? To whom are testing results distributed, and to what extent are they used in planning?

2. Communication Network Survey This is a matrix of closed-ended questions to pinpoint the following information: Who talks to whom, how often, and about what? Who drives planning and decisions? Who influences them? How often are respondents involved in MC planning (formal/informal)? What information sources do they read? How much and what kind of information sharing is there (research, other information)? What are the patterns of internal communication among departments? Is one department doing more talking than listening?

3. Content Analysis All marketing communication or planned messages used by the company over at least a 12-month period are contentlly analyzed to determine whether they are consistent with marketing communication objectives; whether key messages are appropriate for key audiences; and whether there is consistent portrayal of company/brand positioning and image; and the amount of creative strategy and execution consistency. Specifically, the analysis looks at the following elements: the objective of the piece, the audience, key themes, the tone, brand/corporate image/position cues, use of response devices (active and passive), and mission/vision cues. Content analysis findings