Creative Brand Strategy - Project 1: Case Study

on

25/04/2025-09/05/2025 (Week 1-3)
Lizzie Tanaka (0362065)
Creative Brand Strategy | BDCM | Taylor's University
Project 1: Case Study

LECTURE

Week 1
On week 1, we did not have class since we had to attend our Packaging and Merchandise Design MLE Project meeting. 

Fig 1.1 MLE Briefing

Week 2

In week 2, we learned about the branding process. 

1. Brand experience
- Collective responses someone has with a brand
- Includes emotions, reactions, sensations, thoughts, etc
- Lasting impression that a company creates for their customer/general public. 
- Builds positive associations between a brand and their audience
- Demonstrates the brand and their customers shared values and beliefs. 
- It's important because the brand reputation is everything.


The brand provides a promise, why they exist. The experience shows the proof, what the brand does. 

A good brand experience is when the brand's efforts widespread, not just on one thing. 
1. Direct marketing: impacts how your brand is perceived, should trigger positive emotion. 
2. Indirect marketing: such as your employee that can act as your brand ambassadors or online presence. Social media and web can make or break a first impression
3. Personalization: customers like to feel valued so build connection with consumers. 

Mr. Fauzi broke down how the creative process work:
1. Identify the problem
2. Evaluate the data
3. Define the strategy
4. Do a storyboard/prototype
5. Execution
6. Deliverable

Fig 1.2 Week 2 Lecture


Week 3

SWOT Analysis: evaluate a company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Provides a clear picture of the brand's position in the market and find areas for growth. 
1. Strengths: Internal factors giving an advantage over competitors
2. Weaknesses: Internal weaknesses that drain your performance
3. Opportunities: External factors that are potential for growth
4. Threats: External factors that can negatively impact your brand

When to use?
- Developing a new business strategy
- Launching of a new product or service
- Entering a new market
- Evaluating your competitive landscape
- Responding to industry changes

Fig 1.3 Week 3 Lecture

Week 4

Brand Positioning
> Strategic process to define and communicate a brand's unique value proposition to its target audience. 
> Ideal positioning: What consumers want and what a brand does best
> Framework: Define, target, research, evaluate. 

Why it's important:
a. Sets a brand apart in a saturated market
b. Helps a brand stand out, defining unique personality, benefits and values. 
c. Creates a strong emotional connection with target audience. 

How to find a powerful positioning:
1. Analyze the following:
- What the consumers want
- What the company and brand capabilities are
- How each competitor is positioning themselves
2. Choose a positioning statement that:
- Resonate with your customers
- Can be delivered by your company
- Different from your competitor
3. Reflect this positioning in everything you do. 

Creating a brand positioning strategy:
1. Assess current positioning
2. Identify and research competitors
3. Compare to your competitions
4. Find what makes your brand unique
5. Create brand positioning statement
6. Implement it
7. Evaluate and measure success

Types of brand positioning strategies:
- Convenience: demonstrate why a brand is more convenient than competitors
- Niche service: A brand offers something unique that isn't widely available
- Problem and solution: A brand acts as a powerful solution to a problem. 


Fig 1.4 Week 4 Lecture

Week 5

Event Plan
> A guide for all the components of your event. Also known as event management plan where it organizes all of the steps and key information of the event. 

Core Features:
- Event goals and objectives
- Individual roles and responsibilities
- Volunteers, volunteer training
- Budget
- Date and time of event
- Master Plan
- Location
- Branding
- Itinerary
- Partnerships and sponsorship opportunities
- Promo, advertising, marketing and publicity plan
- Day-of-processes
- Vendor info
Why it's important?
- Develop a well planned event by combining aspirational efforts to achieve desired outcome
- Helps in drawing a roadmap and a step-by-step plan
- Ensures a memorable impact to audience
- Event management is about managing calculated risks

Fig 1.5 Week 5 Lecture

Week 6
This week, we learned about moodboards and Mr. Fauzi asked us to create a moodboard for our brand campaign. He provided us with some resources to learn from. 

INSTRUCTIONS



1A : Case Study
You are to analyse a well-established Rebranding Campaign of your choosing. 

1. Identifying its brand strategy: The Brand Story, Objective & Purpose, Brand Values, Vision & Mission, Target Audience, Brand Positioning. 
2. Understanding its brand experience: features and activities. 
3. Reviewing its key visuals and the applications: identity and usage from different platforms.

1B : Campaign Proposal
You are to propose a Branding Campaign. The campaign will be for a a glimpse of your choosing and may be conceptualised as a rebranding exercise to introduce a new concept or as a new product line launch. 

The suggested proposal outline: 
Campaign Description, Brand Story, Objective & Purpose, Brand Values, Vision & Mission, Target Audience, Organizers. SWOTs, Brand
Positioning. Furthermore, you are to identify the Brand Touch Points by producing a Customer Journey Map.

Process Work
For task 1A, I teamed up with Sheryne who already chose Snickers. We thought that this task was individual but once we knew that it was supposed to be in pairs, we teamed up. However, at that time, Sheryne was halfway through the brand strategy section.

Because of this, I then did the brand experience and the key visuals and key applications. 

(photo)

Task 1B
This task asked us to propose a branding campaign. We worked through our SWOT analysis we did.

(SWOT photo)

Based on our SWOT analysis, we highlighted a few weakness and opportunities
  • Weakness
    • Current Snickers tagline may feel overused or too outdated. 
  • Opportunities:
    • Explore other moods other than 'hunger'
    • Localized flavor releases
And based on these, we decided to rebrand their current tagline to a different 'mood' and stray away from hunger and crankiness. Alongside this tagline, we wanted to release a limited edition localized flavor. We realized that Snickers never really released any special Malaysian flavors and thought that it's a direction we could explore. 

For our tagline rebrand, we went for another mood/feeling: guilt. We felt that consumer values were changing and they no longer associate Snickers as a hunger solution, but simply an impulsive, snacking, indulgence that leaves people with the guilt of eating unhealthily due to its typically unhealthy ingredients. We decided to address this issue by positioning Snickers as just a snack and encourage people to consume Snickers without feeling guilty. That there's nothing wrong to just snack in the midst of busy, fast-paced life. 

 So, here is our tagline rebranded:

"Snacking Never Felt So Good!"

Aligning with this, we wanted to use Malaysia's Merdeka Day in August to promote this campaign even more by releasing two Malaysian flavors:
  • Gula Melaka: Basically replacing the caramel syrup with Malaysia's iconic Gula Melaka. 
  • Teh Tarik: A twist to Snickers usual chocolate bar to a fresher, tea flavor based on Malaysia's famous local beverage. 
We wanted to utilize a celebratory moment to further encourage people that snacking without guilt is possible with Snickers. 

We proposed this idea to Mr. Fauzi and he approved of this idea. Then we continued on to make our customer journey map and started Task 2. 

Final Submission

Fig 1.6 Final Project 1 PPT

FEEDBACKS

Week 3
Find the SWOT of Snickers

Week 4
Pitching is great, all good to go. 
REFLECTIONS:
Experience:
Task 1 is a great start and a way to form my foundation about Snickers as a brand and why they position themselves the way they did back in 2010. Understanding their brand well meant we were able to think of a strategic campaign that still aligns with Snickers' brand as a whole. 

Observations:
I observed that having the SWOT analysis and understanding the brand positioning and their objectives originally is important so that when we do the rebrand, we don't stray away from what the brand actually stands for. 

Findings:
I find that as it turns out, the SWOT analysis was very useful. We were able to constantly go back to our analysis to make sure our campaign and our campaign direction aligned with it. Looking at the SWOT in a different way really helped in keeping our campaign in check. 


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