MAN206: Evaluating the WMB Brand Culture Change at Burger U - Report

This report analyzes the WMB brand culture change at Burger U, examining whether the initiative led by Ciara was a deep cultural shift or a superficial marketing exercise. It delves into the roles of marketing and communications specialists versus organizational development and change management specialists in brand culture building and repositioning. The report evaluates Ciara's performance and suggests alternative strategies. It references the case study, marketing literature, and relevant academic readings to support its arguments. The analysis covers changes in customer value propositions, market segmentation, advertising, and organizational restructuring, including staff recruitment and training. The report also considers the financial implications of the changes, such as increased payroll costs, and assesses the potential impact on market share and business margins.

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Table of Contents
Question 1: Did the WMB brand culture exercise led by Ciara represent the beginning of a deep
culture change for WMB in 2013, or was it more of a superficial marketing exercise? Explain
your answer with reference to the text and relevant academic readings.........................................3
Question 2: In your opinion what aspects of the brand culture building and repositioning process
should be undertaken by marketing and communications specialists and what aspects by
organisation development (OD) and change management specialists? Explain your answer with
reference to the text, this case study, the marketing literature and/or your own experience...........7
2.1 Strategies for brand culture development and repositioning processes according to the case
study.............................................................................................................................................7
2.2 Aspects to be undertaken by the organisational development and Change management
specialist.......................................................................................................................................9
Question 3: Do you think that Ciara did a good job? Please explain your answer........................13
Question 4: If you were Ciara what would you have done differently between late 2012 and
mid-2013?......................................................................................................................................14
Reference List................................................................................................................................16

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Question 1: Did the WMB brand culture exercise led by Ciara represent the beginning of a
deep culture change for WMB in 2013, or was it more of a superficial marketing exercise?
Explain your answer with reference to the text and relevant academic readings.
In February, 2013 the brand Burger U was re-launched with new National communication policy
throughout New Zealand. Purposes were introduction of massive changes in the installed
designs, menu, customer service messages, training of employees, product packaging employee
communication and so on. It is evident that this initiative, ws intended for absolute changeover in
terms of customer value propositions. Schroeder, Borgerson and Wu (2017), hold that some
basic changeover concepts are needed for alternating point of sales and the figurative index of
brand development. The organisational changes in this case study indicates initiatives for
alternating the consumer perception and this is confirmed by the inclusion of a new play full
name, Burger U which is communicated with the culture of Sydney. This change cannot be
considered as a superficial marketing Endeavour, in any way because by means of some soldered
and composed marketing activities, the organisation showed the intention of shifting from the
mass market to the boutique dining culture. Intense competition as well as other factors had
strong appeal to the organisation which was not able to maintain a sustainable brand portfolio.
The competition that they were facing from the similar brands or the similar food categories was
causing market segregation. In consideration to the views of Yalkin (2018), it can be regarded
that superficial marketing activities do not support big transitions like alternation of customer
market and targeting as well as positioning for a new class of target market. Nevertheless, in this
case it was evident that the organisation was intending to repose their business from the mass
market to that of the boutique market and thus appeal to the new generation of customers,

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belonging to the millennial generation mostly. Majority of the customer section of the boutique
market demands value, friendly service comfort, quality as well as pleasant surroundings.
Inclusion in the mass market referred that the organisation needed to serve large number of
customers at one time. Nevertheless shifting to the boutique market opened up several avenues
of sales. In addition to that, The Organisation was able to offer choices to the customers in the
form of healthy as well as lighter menu options. Hence, in context to the question, it can be
reflected that there were no specific change-over marketing activities by Burger U or the
initiatives of Ciara. It is evident that the Change management was to be considered as a thorough
organisational change. The new marketing appeal that the company wanted to create in the
market was to be based upon a completely unique and different set of customer value
propositions which included brand makeover, product differentiation as well as shifting to a
different customer segment with advertising and promotional activities targeting the consumers
of boutique dining experience. Additional or extravagant marketing activities cannot entice a
completely new as well as large customer segment. In context to the views of Schembri and
Latimer (2016), such marketing activities are intended to make additional appeal towards the
existing customer base. In other cases, the potential superficial marketing activities would bring
about customer market segmentation, at the best or create a stronger brand proposition among
the customers.
The above stated paragraphs show the basic difference between new marketing changeovers
which incorporates organisational change in almost every aspect. Specifically, it implies
development of a new proposition for a different set of target customers. The Change
management was desirable as well as more significant from the point of view that the
organisation intended to include marketing activities based on the organisational changes that did

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not simply convey some organisational change over for appealing to the customers.
Nevertheless, the marketing activities where primary intended to make those changes in the
organisation which were demanded by the new target customer segment and necessary for
enticing the boutique dining customers. That is why; the incorporation of the healthier and
lighter menu options was done along with clear labelling for showing calorific value as well as
ingredients in each food item. At the same time, it is essential for an organisation operating in the
prepared food market, to hold on to values like taste and quality, if they are a reputed local or
International brand. It is evident that there is no indication of some significant advertising policy
making for new campaigns which can intend towards any organisation goal of attracting
customers. On the contrary, what we observe in this case study is a thorough changeover of the
basic business prepositions like enhancing the consumer experience by means of excellent
service provided in light hearted funny atmosphere where the stores of Burger U will be having
interesting retro décor, incorporating smart and upbeat staff that will have strong affinity towards
the brand. Researchers like Pareek, P. and Kumar (2018), have argued in strong contrast that
developing a different customer value proposition can also be part of a superficial and apparent
marketing activity. However, in this case is arguable that the service value and the brand culture
related messages that can be communicated with the customers as well as the in store staff had
been developed over a long time with risk proposition of compromising the current customer
base form in order to shift the entire business from the mass market to the boutique service level.
This shows that the organisation shifted to a completely new domain of customer service.
Many researchers like Heding, Knudtzen and Bjerre (2015), have argued that absolute brand
makeovers incorporate change requirements like change in organisational structure, hierarchy as
well as shift of customer service domain. In consideration considering the changes incorporated

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by the company, it has been already communicated in the report as well as included the case
study that the organisation has incorporated the initiatives of shifting on from the mass market to
the boutique customer service. Along with the development of new customer value proposition,
the organisation also shifted from the traditional means of advertising and promotion like TV
advertisements, media releases and so on to incorporate promotional activities like discount
offering as well as TV, radio and social media campaigns about establishing the brand in a new
way with a new brand name. Nevertheless in consideration to another demand of the researchers,
regarding the establishment of brand makeover as a part of consolidated marketing activities, it
can be highlighted that in order to establish the new brand culture which was the foremost
proposition as a part of marketing and rivers, the organisation allowed some voluntary as well as
involuntary departure like the resignation of three senior managers, five store managers along
with 37 staff who could not accommodate into the new organisational design in a matter of very
short time (Testa, Cova and Cantone 2017).
In fact the new stores as well as the renovated stores also ran some recruitment campaigns in
order to accommodate new staff line with different criteria for employment. The organisation
demanded to include upbeat staff that would be energetic and communicated with the latest value
propositions of the brand. That is why, Ciara wanted to target a group of tertiary students who
demanded better wages for their necessities and had a willingness to work in conditions like
competitive service domains like hotels, bars, QSR's as well as Cafes. The fact that the
organisation wanted to develop a new brand culture as a part of new marketing initiative and
customer value proposition is evident in the fact that instead of carrying on with their low or
minimum hourly wage culture they transited to good hourly Payment rate including team
incentive as well as bonuses. It was evident that these entries could incur up to 8% extra payroll

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cost for the organisation in the current fiscal year (Strizhakova and Coulter 2015). Nevertheless,
Ciara was ready to take up this calculated business risk. In case if the organisation would have
launched some superficial marketing campaign, they would be apprehending new values like
greater influx of customers or development of strong likability from the end of customers
compared to the other potential brands existing in the market. However, in this initiative of brand
culture development there were seldom any implications in the case study about eradicating
existing competition from other organisations and this implies that Ciara is not worried about the
eccentric competition anymore since the organisation is shifting to a different cultural domain
that will be appealing to a different set of customers section. It is because of these above
mentioned factors that the organisation estimated outcomes like higher business margin, owing
to improved efficiency of processes as well as projection of four to nine percent increase of
market share within the next two fiscal years for the burger and sundry segment of the QSR
market of New Zealand.
Question 2: In your opinion what aspects of the brand culture building and repositioning
process should be undertaken by marketing and communications specialists and what aspects
by organisation development (OD) and change management specialists? Explain your answer
with reference to the text, this case study, the marketing literature and/or your own
experience.
2.1 Strategies for brand culture development and repositioning processes according to the
case study
Marketing and Communications specialist have a lot to learn from the business model of this
organisation. It is not easy to develop a new preposition for alternation of brand culture,
particularly when the organisation is holding a mainstream market share in the mass market. In

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this context it deserves mention that, the marketers should understand that no superficial
marketing activities can compensate for the kind of development that the organisation is
demanding. It is time taking. In order to develop a different value proposition through change in
the brand culture, the organisations need to incorporate several change workshops starting from
the headquarters to all the stores outlets of organisations. Fore mostly, projects like this needs the
incorporation of successful and experienced training manager like Ciara Conti. In order to create
value towards the brand, the Organisation needs to implement low risk piloting approach for
incorporating the cultural changes which are desired. In order to achieve that, organisations need
training managers like Ciara. As exhibited in the case study, organisations demanding brand
culture development, should include embedded changes in culture infrastructure like change in
brand name, difference in product offerings and promotional activities which are different than
traditional strategies appointed by other organisations in the industry or that which have been
implemented by the organisation as a part of their previous business model (Akhter and Machado
2015). In this case, Burger U had emphasized on investing on promotion reflecting a enthusiastic
interior decor, for delivering service through an energetic and upbeat line of staff. The brand
culture development prepositions reflected in the case study are unique from the perception that
Ciara's plan would have been accomplished at only 40% of the cost proposed by the quadrant 47
proposal (Csaba 2017). A significant part of the cost cutting was achieved by using
communication channels like social media instead of mass media like television, radio,
newspapers, and magazines and so on. Social media advertisements, development of new
YouTube videos, Snapchat accounts as well as sharing videos and pictures about the ongoing
procedures as well as projected store outlooks and so on, over Instagram help the organisation to
aggravate the interest of the new target customer segment also. This shows enough evidence of

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shifting to a new customer value proposition strategy which is a significant part of a new brand
culture development. As per the relevant empirical findings, this model of media marketing helps
the small and emerging companies in effective brand marketing and ensuring customer loyalty.
Again, as evidence, in this case study, there is a definite project piloting period, where the
internal stakeholders who are associated with the organisation or incorporated in the organisation
as a part of implementation of the new strategic changes, would be brought together in order to
provide feedback on the proposed changes during this period. This is important from the point of
view that the stakeholders of Executive level who will be implements the new or changed
policies, need to accomplish these policies, by their own will, and that is why they need to have
their consent in the proposed change makeover plan (Wilson 2016).
2.2 Aspects to be undertaken by the organisational development and Change management
specialist
The aspects that need to be considered by the specialists of organisational development as well
as Change management Specialists, from the point of view of this case study, can be reflected
here in alignment to the Change management theories like Lewin's change Management model.
The three stages of this model are unfreezing, change and refreeze. The first step is unfreeze
where according to the theorist, the organisation should prepare for the change and this can be
considered to be a most important part of this Change management model where the organisation
implement various Strategies for Breaking the previous status quo. This step is also important
from the perspective that maximum changes towards the implementation of changes come in this
stage and the change managers including the organisational development specialist need to
demonstrate the benefits that the organisation will gain as well as the individual stakeholders will
also gained from the proposed strategies of Change management (Carah and Angus 2018).

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Hence, it can be implied that this stage is is the process of of examination and re examination of
organisational change strategies from the perspective of the internal stakeholders.
The next stage of this model is changed where the real thing is actually take place and the people
concerned with the change, primary the external stakeholders usually spend time for embracing
the new happenings, development as well as changes. The role of organisational development
specialist is very important in this stage as they need to implement as well as ensure good
leadership as well as reassurance since the new Change management procedure will not only be
directed to steer forward in the correct direction but also to make the process easier as well as
more profitable for the staff of the individual members who involved in this process (Balmer and
Chen 2016).
The third stage is crucial from the point of view of The Change management Specialists as they
need to identify the perfect time span when to implement the refreeze stage of the Lewin’s
Change management model. In this stage, the proposed changes have been accepted, impressed
as well as implemented by the internal and external stakeholders to bring stability back into
organisation.
In context to this case study, the actions like translating value statements into the latest patterns
of behaviour as well as improving performance across the organisation and the need for a
consolidated brand communication campaign can be considered as the first step that is the
unfreezing state of Change management organisation. This case study highlights that in this
initial stage, the organisation needed to understand the radius of the stakeholders’ mind map for
introducing the value driven changes, understand the strategies that can be implemented for
making the Change management process scalable as well as manageable under consideration of
the limitations of time as well as resources also. In this phase, the strategy of Ciara was to

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include stakeholders from maximum number of stores of Burger U so that they could get
accommodated to the Change management process. In fact, the organisation wanted to
implement a bottom-up strategy of including the Change management strategies. It was evident
that during the implementation of the proposed Change management procedures, the current
stakeholders of the organisation who were favouring the previous business model like the store
managers, head office managers and so on would be resisting the implementation of this model
for incorporation of new brand values as well as culture (Balmer and Chen 2016). That is why,
the bottom up approach was implemented by Ciara in this case so that the organisational
hierarchy understood that the change was required and it is supplemented with the support of the
store level as well as the executive level members of the organisation.
The next stage that is a change state, should make the organisational development specialist
implement specific Strategies for dealing with the limitations of time, resources as well as
undertake the challenge of implementing the scale of change. In context to this case study, the
model of change implemented by Ciara can be easily adopted by the organisational development
and Change management specialists. In the first place, she identified 6 most potential stores for
the pilot launch of this Change management model. These stores had high performing managers
as well as staff who are willing for this trial and adoption of the brand and culture embedding
process. As evident in the Change management model, this stage of change is the actual stage for
implementing the major procedures. Likewise, we observe the implementation of major changes
like incorporation of in-store brand artefacts like décor, Signage, product packaging, customer
interaction points, and taglines and so on, in this stage. In fact the changes in the organisational
hierarchy like changes to systems, role, accountability, behaviour as well as working practices
are also evident in this stage. Researchers like Yalkin (2018), also holds that Change

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management experts should also understand that effective communication is very essential for
this state of change because the higher management or the Change management experts should
have a well developed Idea regarding how well the individual store managers or the employees
are able to understand the change requirements and implement the proposed change. This is why,
in this change face, which is the second phase of the Lewin's Change management model, Ciara
invited the representative staff from 6 most popular stores from Auckland, Christchurch as well
as Dunedin to have meeting sessions with senior management as well as the staff representatives
of the BB group. This is a stage of disruptive innovation for implementation of new ideas
regarding brand value proposition in the respective stores. Organisations in the customer servie
business can easily imitate this strategy. Another important lesson for Organisational
Development experts in context to this stage is that during this phase they should rewrite the
position descriptions in order to reflect the new values incorporated for every job role in the
organisation. For the Change management experts it is worth remembering that effective
communication of these new brand values and the strategies that is needed for reflection of this
brand values is very important and this is to be done through communication of the same on
common documentations like rosters, with development of some key performance indicators
which will decide whether the organisational members are working in the proposed manner or
not. Generic analysis of whether they are following the key performance indicators are not, can
decide if the organisation is able to accommodate the processes of change or not.
The third stage from another refreezing stage is idealized in the form of the post script that is
provided for the organisation from October 2013 to July 2014. Since major change activities
have already been undertaken in this case study during the second stage, third stage of refreezing
went on smoothly. However, researchers like Yalkin (2018), identify that in context to the third