BBC Brand Strategy Report: Key Factors, Analysis, and Recommendations

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the BBC's brand strategy. It begins with an introduction outlining the report's objectives and scope, followed by a detailed situational analysis using SWOT and PESTEL frameworks to assess the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, as well as its political, economic, socio-cultural, technological, environmental, and legal environments. The report then explores product and service ideas, perceptual maps, target market identification, and key competitors, particularly CNN. It delves into BBC's brand values, brand personality, and brand identity, examining elements such as trust, audience focus, quality service, creativity, and collaborative efforts. The marketing mix, including price, place, and promotion strategies, is discussed, followed by brand management techniques for a new product, the BBC Kids Channel. The report concludes with a summary of findings and recommendations for future brand development, referencing key sources and research.

BRAND STRATEGY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
1) Key factors of situational analysis..........................................................................................1
2) Product and service Idea, perceptual maps, target market and key competitors of BBC.......5
3) Brand values, brand personality and brand identity of BBC..................................................6
4) Price, Place and Promotion strategies.....................................................................................6
5) Brand Management Techniques for BBC's new product Kids Channel.................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
BBC or British Broadcasting Company was established in 1922, it started national
broadcast coverage in the UK by 1925. It was not influenced by any political pressure. BBC is
following decentralised structure to minimise its cost. It favours and invites multiple culture at
their workplace (Inside the Business, 2017). So, in this report various methods like SWOT
analysis, PESTEL analysis has been done to support the sensitivity and situational analysis. The
objective of this report is to study and define various strategies of branding. Several ideas of
products and services is described and justification of attractive marketing opportunities for BBC
has been mentioned. Perceptual map will enlighten the relevance of these justifications. Target
marketing strategies have been explained in steps and process. Brand proposition is done by
making unique selling proposition for BBC, brand values, brand personality and brand identity
and their visuals is included in this report.
1) Key factors of situational analysis
Key factors are those by which company can decide those elements which affect its brand
strategies (Aaker and Joachimsthaler, 2012). These factors can also affect the Brand image of
BBC in the market. So before making brand strategy, BBC should do situational analysis of its
product by finding the answers of these questions:
 What is your products and services lines?
 What are the market opportunities for BBC?
 What are the sources of BBC for its sales and distribution?
 What are the geographical area where BBC has its existing customer's?
 Who are the competitors of BBC?
 Who are the target audience of BBC?
 What are the successful factors of good sale?
After answering these questions, BBC can able to find its actual position in the market.
There are several methods of situational analysis for any brands. But in this report, SWOT and
PESTEL analysis has been considered, as it is more relevant for proper situational analysis. In
this methods analysis of various key factors of situational analysis has been included. Let’s start
with SWOT analysis of BBC:
STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
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 Oldest national broadcasting
organisation.
 Strong brand image
 Sound financial conditions
 Largest broadcaster all over the world
 Huge line of various products
 Latest Technologies available
 Biased views in broadcasting
 High operating cost
 Threat to the life of employees,
especially at war zone
 Criticised on several matters: Iraq war,
politics, etc.
OPPORTUNITIES
 Should stop biased views
 Organising international events for
strengthening BBC brand
 Should grow at Asian and South-
American markets
 Expansion opportunities in China
 Can cover businesses like Fashion,
entertainment, technology, live shows,
etc.
THREATS
 CNN is the stronger competitor of
BBC.
 Launching of domestic news can
reduce its viewers all over the world.
Hence, from the above swot analysis, it can be said that BBC is at strong position as it is
enjoying the monopoly of market. Because company has only one big competitor which is CNN.
So company can finish this threat by making some deal with CNN by sharing equal market share
or by using the John Nash's game theory. According to John Nash, if both companies competing
each other than the customers or third competitor will win and there will always be Win and lose
situation (Abbing, 2010). On the other hand, if both the competitors join their hand, then they
will lie in Win-win situation and the customers will lose. Hence they can also manipulate the
market in Win-Win situation.
Another method of situational analysis is PESTEL analysis, in this method different
factors has been taken into consideration. This tool helps BBC in making internal analysis of
company and SWOT analysis is best suitable for external analysis. Below is the table which
shows PESTEL analysis of BBC:
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POLITICAL
 Independent and self-regulated organisation
 It is linked with Royal Charter, which is reviewed by governments
 BBC comes under privatization in 1986
 BBC got the support of John Major's government
ECONOMICAL
 BBC's organisational structured changed from centralized to decentralised
 Shifted towards cultural change
SOCIO-CULTURAL
 Bureaucracy has been reduced after decentralisation
 Trustworthy organisation in the market
 Eligible recipient of public funds
TECHNICAL
 1990s BBC starts taking initiative of online technologies
 First company to launch TV and Radio programmes at 1990s
 Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) for reducing its cost
 Uses digital services
ENVIRONMENTAL
 Cultural change followed by globalisation of infotainment industries
 Market-station was launched by creating new trading system
 Programme commissioning was started by BBC
LEGAL
 It is self-regulated
 Independent of political and government influences.
Hence, PESTEL analysis helps in understanding the internal environment of BBC. So
from the above analysis, various key factors for BBC's successful branding can be explained as
follows:
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 Purpose: BBC should know and analyse its purpose of marketing before making brand
strategies. As a brand of any company is promise to the customer to give the same
services and feel as before. So some the ways to find BBC's purpose is:
◦ Functional: This helps BBC in finding the key purpose by which company can
achieve success like the purpose of company is to cover maximum geographical
areas.
◦ Intentional: This concept support the functional purpose, as it links the capability to
cover maximum countries.
 Consistency: The main possible ways BBC can be consistent is by avoid focusing on
the factors which doesn't relate to its brand. Thus consistency is the major factor in
brand success (De Chernatony, 2010). This is the reason; analysis of this factor is
important because without consistency BBC can't focus on brand recognition factors.
 Emotions: It is important factor in brand strategy because due to emotions a customer
become loyal to the products of the company. That's why, BBC should do emotional
branding by creating group and region around its brand. So every emotion branding will
include the feel of participants of a larger group by the people.
 Flexibility: It is necessary for BBC to make its product flexible because a rigid design
in product can cause failure to the product. So, flexibility is important to make the
channel relevant with marketing changes. Thus, examination of this factor will help
BBC in making flexible brand strategy.
 Employee Involvement: For BBC its employees plays a major role, as they take risk of
their life on taking interviews at war zone areas. So, while making brand strategy,
involvement of employees is necessary because they know the people well and their
suggestions can give fruitful results (Spence and Hamzaoui Essoussi, 2010).
 Competitive Awareness: Awareness of all competitive companies is good practice
(Pinar, Trapp and Boyt, 2011). It is because; if BBC will made strategy for successful
brand marketing and that strategy is failed by competitors by launching effective
product than this will exert great impact on the company.
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2) Product and service idea, perceptual maps, target market and key competitors of BBC
BBC is usually into give services to the people in the form of new either through
magazines, TV, Radios and online websites, so its services are its product. So BBC has an
amazing market opportunities because of the following reasons which is based on service ideas:
 There are 100% chance for BBC to come under government's green paper, which mean it
will get full support by the government or it will be declared as the national news
broadcaster. So, after this, it will enjoy full monopoly over the market as no one will be
able to reach to that position easily.
 No broadcaster has the dare to occupy the landscapes where BBC did.
 No defence is ready to take the risk of transforming existing landscapes to other private
broadcasters. It is because; BBC is the only old broadcaster of news and it has invested
56% of its revenue on the shares of UK's government.
 BBC has the opportunity to crowding out which means it will be comes under public
sector from private sector. This opportunity will give BBC the advantage of covering
large areas. So if BBC covers large area than there will be very much less area left for
private broadcasters.
Perceptual mapping is a diagrammatic presentation of perception of customer's on
different products of the company (Dutta and Pullig, 2011). Thus perceptual maps shows the
position of a company's product, product line and brand comparing to their competitors. So from
the point of view of perceptual map, it can be clearly state that BBC has more market coverage
and it’s likeable by the most people because it covers those landscapes like war zones which
another broadcaster doesn't dare to (Oswald, 2012).
On the perceptive of targeting the market, BBC has more opportunities as, its target is to
cover Asia and South-American countries. No competitors of BBC has any aim of doing so. As
they are still struggling to beat the BBC in domestic market.
The key competitor of BBC is CNN, which has also a good market coverage. But still
people and candidates would prefer to join BBC first as it is favoured by the government due its
huge investment on it. Further, in the near future, chances of BBC to become public channel is
near to 100% which will create the situation of this company to be crowding out. Hence it is safe
from CNN.
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3) Brand values, brand personality and brand identity of BBC
 Brand Values: These are those values which helps the people to identify the product of
particular company (Glynn, 2012). Thus, values are nothing but principals of BBC which
it follows to achieve its goals and to avoid any unethical actions by its employees. So
some of the brand values of BBC are as follows:
◦ Trust is the main focus of BBC, hence it is not partial and it is honest
◦ Audiences are the heart of BBC
◦ BBC take response of delivering quality services so that it gives value for money to
its user's.
◦ Creativity is the main focus of the company
◦ BBC is only one, and it can change the world by work together.
 Brand Personality: It is the combination of various characteristics of company’s
products that makes brand name of a product (Hu, Chang and Chen, 2010). A brand
personality helps a consumer to relate his choice with the product. Like for example a
news viewer will prefer BBC news channel. So, the USP (unique seller proposition) of
BBC is that it shows only news channel. It covers large areas in several countries. Thus,
it is the great advantage for BBC to broadcast its channel to news loves or the people who
want trustworthy information without any alteration.
 Brand Identity: It means the desire of the company to be perceived by consumers
(Kapferer, 2012). Therefore there are several components of brand identity which are:
Name, logo, tone, punch line, etc. of the company. Hence in the case of BBC, BBC News
is an effective logo and thus contribute to it great USP. This because; it clearly invites
those people who loves news channels. Along with that, it is using the tag-line of “The
World's Newsroom” to attract the news viewers not only from domestic areas but from
the whole world.
4) Price, Place and Promotion strategies
Before making marketing mix for BBC, it is necessary to have understanding of its
various products. Thus BBC has various product lines: BBC Television, BBC Radio, Future
Media, BBC North Group, BBC Trust, Finance and Business, BBC Studios and Post Production
and News Group. Hence it is clear that BBC is targeting mostly news subscribers. So price, place
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and promotion strategies should be based on the people who prefer news channel than any other
channels (Keller, Parameswaran and Jacob, 2011). These are as follows:
 Place in the Marketing Mix of BBC: It's headquarter is located in London. So in place
strategy, the target will be launching its channel outside the London to get maximum
coverage all around the world. This strategy can support brand values by giving the
coverage to more people outside London which will help it become popular all around
the world. Place strategy also supports brand personality as it will target news lover
people around the world. And as a brand identity its slogan will work to target particular
people.
 Price Strategy: BBC works on licensing system, thus person who watches live TV of
BBC is covered in it. Further, license fees is the main source of funding for BBC. So it
can fixed its license fees to subscribe it easily. Thus it can keep the license fee low by
excluding its commercial services from BBC's public services, which will help the
viewers to choose their choices. It will give cost advantage. And it will also support
brand values by giving value for money, personality by making its fees low and identity
by serving their existing customer's.
 Promotion Strategy: BBC can be promoted through, paid subscription on you-tube, tie
ups with TV producers, indulge in the techniques like SEO, analysing its data to keep
BBC Good Food on the top of the page and at last advertisings like BTL and ATL will be
used to promote it successfully.
5) Brand Management Techniques for BBC's new product Kids Channel
BBC can measure its brand value for its new product which is Kids channel in several
ways:
 Branded keyword tracking: It is the process of regularly tracking branded keyword
traffic, so that it can measure the impact of promotion on its targetted people i.e. small
kids (Ko, Phau and Aiello, 2016). Branded keyword means a word which is associated
with brand which is BBC kid’s channel. BBC can tracks its brand keyword by clouds
specially made to measure no. of views on particular topic. Or company will use the tool
Google analytics to measure keyword traffic.
 Direct Traffic Tracking: It measures the number of viewers come to BBC's website
whether by browser or through bookmark.
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 Branded Tweet Tracking: This tool will support BBC in measuring the effect of its
promotion on viewers by monitoring the trends of tweets about BBC kids channel on
Twitter.
 Website Traffic Differential Tracking: This tool will help BBC in compare its traffic
with CNN's traffic. BBC will relate only those visitors which are on its target. Its target is
small kids, so it will check how many kids has visited to its kids channel compare to
CNN.
 Turnover: BBC can also check its promotion result by comparing its revenue especially
from particular product.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above report that BBC has few threats and weaknesses as
per SWOT and PESTLE analysis made. But still it is facing some criticism related to partiality
and favouritism. This issue can affect company by reducing its brand value and identity as its
focus is on trust of the people. Hence, it doesn't matter how big BBC is, but what people think
about it, matters a lot. At the end, it is suggested and recommended that BBC should maintain its
trust while telecasting its news (without any alteration) so that it can maintain large customer
base and market share of company.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Aaker, D. A. and Joachimsthaler, E., 2012. Brand leadership. Simon and Schuster.
Abbing, E. R., 2010. Brand driven innovation: strategies for development and design (Vol. 21).
Ava Publishing.
De Chernatony, L., 2010. Creating powerful brands. Routledge.
De Chernatony, L., 2010. From brand vision to brand evaluation: The strategic process of
growing and strengthening brands. Routledge.
Dutta, S. and Pullig, C., 2011. Effectiveness of corporate responses to brand crises: The role of
crisis type and response strategies. Journal of Business Research. 64(12). pp.1281-1287.
Glynn, M. S., 2012. Primer in B2B brand-building strategies with a reader practicum. Journal of
Business Research. 65(5). pp.666-675.
Hu, T. L., Chang, C. Y., Hsieh, W. C. and Chen, K.H., 2010. An integrated relationship on brand
strategy, brand equity, customer trust and brand performance-An empirical investigation
of the health food industry. International Journal of Organizational Innovation
(Online). 2(3). p.89.
Kapferer, J. N., 2012. The new strategic brand management: Advanced insights and strategic
thinking. Kogan page publishers.
Keller, K. L., Parameswaran, M. G. and Jacob, I., 2011. Strategic brand management: Building,
measuring, and managing brand equity. Pearson Education India.
Ko, E., Phau, I. and Aiello, G., 2016. Luxury brand strategies and customer experiences:
Contributions to theory and practice. Journal of Business Research. 69(12). pp.5749-
5752.
Oswald, L. R. and Oswald, L., 2012. Marketing semiotics: Signs, strategies, and brand value.
Oxford University Press.
Pinar, M., Trapp, P., Girard, T. and Boyt, T. E., 2011. Utilizing the brand ecosystem framework
in designing branding strategies for higher education. International Journal of
Educational Management. 25(7). pp.724-739.
Spence, M. and Hamzaoui Essoussi, L., 2010. SME brand building and management: an
exploratory study. European Journal of Marketing. 44(7/8). pp.1037-1054.
Online
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Inside the Business. 2017. [Online]. Available through
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/corporate2/insidethebbc/whoweare/mission_and_values>.
[Accessed on 2nd November, 2017].
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