Brand Development and Marketing for Amazon Alexa

The report provides a comprehensive brand audit of Amazon Alexa, the latest innovation of Amazon, and its brand elements, attributes, and portfolio. It analyzes the marketing mix, customer knowledge, and sources and threats to the brand equity, and provides recommendations for sustainability in its business model.

Running Head: Brand Development & Marketing
Amazon
Brand Development and Marketing
Group Brand Audit

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Executive Summary
The report here focusses on the brand analysis of Amazon, and one of its newest product offering
which is Alexa. Amazon which has presence in more than 12 countries and ships products in more
than 165 countries is the largest e-commerce brand.
Amazon which was founded in the year 1994 as an online book seller, grow by leaps and bounds and
at present the company offers millions of products to people across the globe. Despite facing stiff
competition from its biggest rival, Walmart, the company has shown strong growth in all the key
markets. One of the biggest reason why Amazon is considered as one of the largest brand is the trust
and relationship it builds with its customers. Amazon as a brand is considered to be reliable,
customer centric, trust worthy, provider of quality goods and extremely innovative in all its policies
and procedures.
Amazon Alexa which comes in two variant Echo and Dot is a family of voice-activated devices which
acts as a personal assistant to the humans. This new age product allows people to ask question on
plethora of topics such as weather, news, sports, general knowledge and many more, moreover the
device can easily be connected to other home automation devices and also has the capacity to order
products from Amazon.
The report here conveys a comprehensive brand audit of Amazon and analyse the brand in reference
to its relevant product related attributes, brand portfolio, analysis of applicable brand elements,
evaluation of the marketing mix, and evaluation of customer knowledge, the sources and threat to
the brand equity along with a set of recommendation for the brand. The brand audit of Amazon
suggests that the company has strong value in the marketplace based on different brand aspects
which contributes towards the success of Amazon.

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Introduction
The brand audit report aims to provide an analysis of the Amazon Brand by examining all the
relevant brand facets. The report will focus on Amazon and its newest product offering, Amazon
Alexa. In order to successfully analyse the Amazon Brand, the report will begin with the areas of
Amazon background, product related attributes, Brand portfolio and brand elements. Next will be
the evaluation of key areas such as Marketing Mix, customer knowledge and the sources and threats
to the brand equity, followed by a set of recommendation for Amazon brand to ensure sustainability
in its business model.
Brand Inventory
Brand Background
Amazon brand is an inspiration to millions of entrepreneurs across the globe, it was Amazon which
revolutionized the e-commerce sector and plethora of players emerged after the success of the
company. Amazon which started its journey as on online book seller in the year 1994, at present has
the largest offering of products on its website. CEO and Founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos vision is to

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sell anything to everything which a customer might search online. The company in the year 2016
earned revenue of US $ 135 Billion and ships products in over 165 countries.
The online e-commerce player has bet its rivals Microsoft, Yahoo and even Google in its cloud
business, Amazon’s Alexa is a brainchild of Amazon web services which is its cloud platform. Jeff
Bezos ensures that all the policies, procedures and culture at Amazon are driven around customers,
which is the reason that Amazon is the largest customer-centric company on the planet.
Amazon is well known for its leading innovation such as Fire stick, Echo, Dot, Kindle and other such
products which it created to push the spectrum of product for its millions of customers, with the

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purpose of making their lives easier. Amazon marketing strategy is a well thought combination of
both the traditional media and contemporary marketing tools, however, mostly its focus is on digital
advertising.
Brand Attributes
Brand attribute is also referred to as core values of the brand and it represents the essence of the
brand. It can be understood as a set of characteristic which identify the physical, character and
personality traits of the brand, and these brand attributes helps to identify the brand. The brand
attributes of Amazon are:
Innovative
As mentioned earlier, Amazon is considered as one of the most innovative company the world has
ever witnessed. Its offering such as Amazon Alexa, Echo, Dot, Amazon Go store, Kindle, Fire stick,
Amazon drone, Amazon Prime are some of the examples of the company’s innovation. Customers all
over the world see Amazon as the provider of innovative solution which never fails to give a
heightened experience to its customers. Amazon innovation is not only reflected in its product

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designing and creation, but it is also reflected in the polices and procedure which are always directed
towards the customers.
Customer Friendly
Jeff Bezos vision for Amazon is to create policies which are highly customer centric in nature; this is
one of the strongest brand attribute of Amazon. Millions of customers across the globe find Amazon
to be customer friendly due to its easy refund policy, guaranteed 1 day delivery, quality check of
products and wide range of product offering. Customer success team at Amazon ensures that it
addresses all the grievances and concerns of the customers and builds a friendly relationship with
them. Amazon excels at its social listening and its sentimental score on Social media is always
positive, which reflects its customer friendly brand attribute.

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Global
Amazon is a truly global brand, the company which is present in more than 12 countries and ships
products in more than 165 countries, consistently works towards providing products catering to the
domestic demand. Despite being global in nature, the company works on a strategy, which is
referred to as GLOCAL, Go Global and Think local. GLOCAL strategy is seen as one of the brand
attribute of Amazon, which makes the company truly global, despite the fact that it tweaks it
product offering to better suit the demand of the countries.
Trustworthy

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Trust is gained by the brand when it consistently meets customer expectation over and over.
Trustworthy as a brand attribute of Amazon is reflected in its guaranteed delivery of product in a day
for its prime customers, competitive pricing, great quality products, customized deals and offers and
machine learning algorithm which it uses to improve the customer experience on its platform. High
level of trust of its customers is one of the strong reasons behind the growth of the brand.
Brand Portfolio
Brand portfolio can be seen as an umbrella under which all the brands of a particular company
functions in order to serve the needs of different market segments. In other words, brand portfolio
encompasses all the brands which are offered by a firm with a view of selling. Amazon has been
building a large number of private brands in categories like Lifestyle, accessories, fashion, consumer
electronics and furnishing which deliver value to the customers. However, within the purview of the
report, Amazon Kindle, Amazon Alexa and Amazon Prime video will be discussed.

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Amazon Kindle
Amazon kindle is a series of device which is designed and marketed by Amazon, the smart device
allows users to buy, browse, download and read content such as e-books, newspapers, magazines
and other media which is enabled by networking connected through the Kindle store. Amazon Kindle
is a great innovation by Amazon which helped the company to gain a huge audience which was
interested in reading. At present, Amazon Kindle comes in four major versions which are
differentiated on the basis of their appearance and the input method. Kindle, Kindle touch, Kindle
Fire and Kindle DX are the different variant of Kindle available in the market. Kindle has a free library
of almost 11,500 books which are easily accessible to its readers.

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Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime video is an internet video on demand service which was launched for the first time in
the year 2006, that is 12 years after the launch of Amazon. Jeff Bezos had a vision for future, he
knew that Internet has a lot of potential and it would soon become available in every house. Keeping
this view in mind, and the penetration of the home entertainment by players like Netflix and
Blockbuster, the company launched its Prime video services to its customers. The Prime video
platform creates original content, distributes content and collaborates with various content creators
and produces documentaries, short films and series with them. Amazon prime video is hugely
popular amongst the millennials audience and the family audience.

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Amazon Alexa
Amazon Alexa is the latest innovation of Amazon which was released in the year 2014, it is a virtual
assistant which is developed by Amazon and found use in Amazon Echo Dot smart speakers. Amazon
Alexa which is a smart voice assistant lets users play music, control music, control smart appliances
in the home, make calls, book appointment, news, weather and many more. The device has been
received great reviews from technical enthusiasts and experts who find the product exceptionally
advanced. Alexa sits quietly in one place and with the help of microphones listens to all the
conversation of its customer, this information is then stored on the cloud and helps in improving the
experience of the customers.
Brand Elements
Brand elements by and large helps the customers to identify with the brand, and the brand elements
effectively communicates with its customers and differentiates itself from its competitors. Brand
elements have the ability to form strong and favourable brand association in the mind of the
consumers. Every brand has its own Brand elements, in case of Amazon the brand elements are its
Brand name, its logo and its Packaging design.

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Brand Name
A brand name is arguably one of the key brand elements while developing the brand. The brand
name has to be created in such a manner that the audience finds a logical connection with the
brand; more so, the brand name should justify the business operation, scale and the purpose of the
organization.
Not many people know that Amazon was initially incorporated under the name of “Cadabra”,
however, Jeff Bezos changed the name when people confused it with Cadaver. The brand name
Amazon was kept behind the river Amazon, which also justifies its scale of operation, moreover in
back in the day, the websites used to be alphabetical.
Brand Logo

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Brand logo is another key brand element for the business organization and helps to build a strong
connect with the audience and also creates top of the mind recall. The initial logo of Amazon was an
abstract river design; however after some more designs in the year 2000 the logo was changed. The
Present logo of Amazon which is the smile and arrow says that the company is happy to delivery
anything, anywhere. The logo of smile begins with “a” and ends on a dimple with “z”, also A-Z
reflects that the company sells anything to everything on its platform.
Packaging
Packaging is considered to be an important brand element as it makes the customer notice the
brand which has a significant role to play in the marketplace. Amazon is obsesses over providing
great customer experience, the company listens to its customers and identify news and innovative
ways to reduce the waste, bring improvement in manufacturer packaging on items the company
sells and adds innovation in its packaging programme at its fulfilment centres which is based on its
Frustration Free Packaging Program. At present Amazon is working on creating 100% recyclable
packaging material as its initiative towards cleaner environment.