Decision Making in Brand Building: A Telstra Brand Health Evaluation

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Telstra's brand evaluation process, focusing on decision-making strategies for brand building and health tracking. It outlines Telstra's business and research objectives, emphasizing the importance of brand positioning, target audience identification, and competitive analysis within the Australian telecommunication industry. The report explores various branding decisions, including brand positioning, brand name selection, brand sponsorship, and brand development, recommending brand extension as a viable strategy for Telstra to maintain its competitive edge. It also examines the research design, advocating for communication evaluation as a key method for brand health tracking, covering brand awareness, usage, experience, and image. The report concludes by highlighting the significance of measuring brand health through various metrics and utilizing data-driven insights for strategic decision-making to enhance Telstra's brand appeal and market share, with the use of secondary data collected from internet searches, libraries, and scholarly articles for the purpose of this report.

Running Head: DECISION MAKING
Decision Making

DECISION MAKING 1
Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Business & research objective(s).....................................................................................................2
Information required to fulfil the research objectives.....................................................................3
Describe the research design in relation to the chosen approach....................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Branding plays an important role for both buyers and sellers. A seller can easily differentiate its
products from that of competitors with the help of branding. Moreover, it also fosters brand
loyalty and therefore assists in stabilizing market share. For the buyers, it reduces the time
needed for making purchases. Brand Health Tracking (BHT) plays a significant role in business
as it is a strategic tool for measuring the health of the brand. This is due to the fact that
customized tracking surveys are needed for evaluating the different issues faced by the brand.
The chosen research area is brand building and evaluation.
This report is focused on the company Telstra which belongs to the Australian
telecommunication industry and provides its business and research objectives, information
needed for fulfilling the research objectives and research design in the context of the chosen
approach.
Business & research objective(s)
Telstra Corporation Limited is the largest telecommunication company of Australia which
performs the function of operating and building telecommunication networks mobile, markets
voice and various other products and services. The business objectives of Telstra provide to
establish an infrastructure business unit for driving performance. It further aims at building
technology and content solutions that can be easily used by the customers (Johnston, 2016). The
research objective is to evaluate the Telstra brand and make decisions regarding brand evaluation
since branding is considered to be an important aspect of the contemporary business. The
research objectives of Brand Health Tracking are relating to understanding and tracking the
health of brands. It further aims at leveraging this tracking data for the purpose of generating and
communicating actionable insights and recommendations in order to effectively improve the
brand appeal and the resulting gain in market share. The research objectives also include
assessing the snapshot of the brand’s health at a particular point of time (Lucarelli & Giovanardi,
2016).

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Information required to fulfil the research objectives
The positioning of the brand must be ensured in the minds of the target customers. There are
three levels involved in the brand positioning namely brand attributes, benefits and believes and
values. Brand evaluation is considered to be equally important for large corporations like Telstra
that have the capability of spending money for the purpose of researching for their brand.
However, it is important for the small businesses as well. An objective sense of the value of the
brand is provided by the brand evaluation along with providing a sense of the worth of the brand.
It further assists in making the identification of the potential problems with the brand on timely
basis (King & So, 2015).
The output expected by the research is to have an objective out look of the brand Telstra.
Moreover, it will provide the business an opportunity to view the brand as a potential investor
and therefore will assists in correcting the problems on time. The four major branding decisions
are brand positioning, brand name selection, brand sponsorship, brand development. Since brand
name selection have already been completed by Telstra as it is an established brand, rest of the
branding decisions can still assist the company in increasing its market share and popularity (Van
Rompay, Fransen & Borgelink, 2014).
The first and foremost information required for conducting brand research is determining the
target audience. Target audience will assist Telstra in tailoring its mission and message for the
purpose of meeting the exact needs. The target audience of Telstra is not limited as it targets
everyone who has access to or can use the phones. Therefore, the target audience involves
business people, students, farm workers and school kids. In other words, the target audience of
Telstra involves almost every one of every age group. The identification of target audience of the
services of Telstra will affect and benefit all the brand building areas, specifically marketing
efforts (Bapat & Thanigan, 2016).
The next information needed is relating to the brand mission statement. The value provided by
the business needs to be determined before building a brand that can be trusted by the target
audience. The mission statement of Telstra provides that it builds content and technology
solutions that are simple and easy to be used and is valued by the customers. It also strives to
know and serve the customers in a better way than the competitors. It will assist in making brand
building and other decision making processes (Mirzaei et. al. 2015).

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The next information required will be of the other brands in the industry niche. The popular
brands in the telecommunication industry of Australia are Vodafone Australia, NetComm
Wireless, Queste Communication, TPG Telecom, Optus, etc. these brands have established their
names in the industry and have gained popularity with the passage of time. Competitor branding
information assists in framing the strategy and decision making relating to the brand. For
example, brand competitor research spreadsheet can be created for making the comparison
among different aspects of the brand (Hudson et. al. 2017). Then, the next factor to be considered
is outlining the benefits or key qualities of Telstra which have the capability of providing it with
the competitive advantage over the competitors in the telecommunication industry of Australia.
Telstra targets the low- cost customers and have the advantage of being the leader of the
Australian telecommunication industry (Le Roux, Thébault, Roy & Bobrie, 2016).
Information regarding the brand voice of the business will provide the manner in which the
business will communicate with the customers. The brand voice can be informative,
conversational, promotional, authoritative, service oriented, friendly, professional and technical.
Such information will play an important part in branding decision making relating to brand
positioning, brand name selection, brand sponsorship and brand development. The information
collected for the research will further assist in brand development (Boenigk & Becker, 2016).
Four choices are there with the companies for developing their brands namely line extensions,
multi- brands, new brands and brand extensions. Line extensions can be defined as extension of
an existing brand to new sizes, forms, ingredients, colors or flavors of an existing service
category. It is a low risk and low cost way for introducing new services and products. Brand
extension also makes the use of an existing brand name but it combines it with a new service or
product category. Multi- brands can be referred to as marketing of various brands in a given
product category. Distinct features can be established with the help of multi-branding that have
the capability of appealing to diverse customer segments. On the other hand, the use of new
brands is made when the power of existing brand names is diminishing (Veloutsou, 2015).
Telstra can select any of the above options as per its need. From the perspective of the business
manager of Telstra, it is recommended that the company should go for brand extension which
will assist in keeping the existing brand name along with combining it with new service
category. Diversification is important for Telstra in order to maintain its competitive edge in the

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marketplace. Brand extension will allow Telstra to extend to a new service category while
keeping its existing brand name (Moro, Rita & Vala, 2016). This will provide an instant
recognition to the service introduced by Telstra and it will be accepted in the marketplace within
the small period of time. From the business perspective, it will be beneficial as it will save the
substantial advertising costs required to be incurred for establishing new brand. However, there
is a risk associated with the adoption of brand extension approach by Telstra. The risk is related
to the fact that such extension may confuse the image of the main brand. In case of failure of the
extension, the attitude of the consumers towards the services carrying the same brand may be
harmed. For example, brand extension of Heinz in the area of pet food failed but other products
of the brand are still functioning well in the market. Similar example is that of Kellog’s which
has extended its Special K healthy breakfast cereal brand into a complete cereals line along with
the line of snacks, biscuits and nutrition bars (Hudson et. al. 2016).
Describe the research design in relation to the chosen approach
Each aspect of brand health is significant in different way. There are a number of ways in which
the effectiveness of the brand can be measured such as brand equity, brand awareness, brand
reputation, brand positioning, brand delivery, employee engagement and brand equity (Gurhan-
Canli et. al. 2016). Brand awareness can be positive or negative therefore, prime consideration
should be given to this fact. Working out all the factors together will provide an adequate
conclusion to Telstra whether its brand is fine, unhealthy or thriving. This will further assist the
business managers in taking the required actions. In case, the results provide that the brand is
unhealthy then it means that it is actively causing damage to the organization. The measurement
of the brand health can be made with the help of different methods in order to gather data
regarding the brand (Cawsey & Rowley, 2016).
Since the use of secondary data is made for the purpose of this assignment, documents and
records appears to be an appropriate data collection approach. Record and document review
covers the systematic collection of data from the current records. This data collection through
secondary data is the data which is actually collected by someone else and is used for the
purpose of this report. The use of this approach has been made in order to save time involved in
the collection of primary data. The rationale behind the selection of this method is due to the fact

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that it has the capability of providing higher- quality and larger databases that are impossible to
be collected by the individual researches on their own. The approach used involves data from
internet searches, libraries and scholarly articles (Steenkamp, 2017).
The model recommended for brand health tracking is communication evaluation.
Communication is considered to be important marketing stimuli which is used by the companies
for the purpose of creating the desired results. In BHT, Telstra is required to track brand
awareness, brand usage and experience and brand image. Under brand awareness, the points
covered include recognition and recall. Under the heading brand usage and experience, the
company will track total spending, purchase frequency and amount, brands purchased, brand
change likelihood, future purchase intent and customer satisfaction and loyalty (Allwood, 2015).
Moreover, under brand image, the company will consider brand attributes, brand attitudes, brand
benefits, favorability, strength and uniqueness. The customer satisfaction is enhanced in
accordance with the product performance, shopping experience, customer service, and future
purchase intent. However, the behavior of the customers covers brand loyalty, brand purchases,
purchase amount, purchase frequency, etc. (Van Horen & Pieters, 2017).
Communication evaluation method for brand heath tracking provides that disproportionate
amount of marketing budgets are spent in order to communicate with the customers, both BTL
and ATL. ATL stands for above the line and BTL stands for below the line. Above the line
advertising can be defined as the type of advertising where the use of mass media is made in
order to promote the brands and reaching out to the target customers. Below the line advertising
can be defined as the type of advertising which is one to one and covers the distribution of
handbills, pamphlets, promotions, stickers, brochures and banners (Zhong, Wang & Zhang,
2018).
The proposed methodology for brand health tracking in case of Telstra is media- neutral, which
is not inclined towards a specific medium. It will accurately measure the impact of
communication across media, without giving any favor to a specific medium. All mediums will
be covered in this methodology such as internet, radio, television, newspaper/ magazine and
shops/ outdoor (Rahman and Areni, 2014). The proposed methodology further provides feedback
to Telstra enabling them to give more preference to the advertisements that play an important
part in branding. It further provides that quick modification or withdrawal of the ads does not

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work in the favor of the brands. This aspect is basically related to the effectiveness and
efficiency. Quality of media planning is attempted to be captured by efficiency, i.e. the number
of customers that are actually are regarding the advertisement. On the other hand, effectiveness
aims at the creation of desired results among the target audience of Telstra (Rahman & Areni,
2016).
Furthermore, Telstra can also make the use of differentiation model for brand health tracking.
The world is over crowded with brands that have unique and distinctive personality which, in
turn, poses threat and creates a challenge for the rand Telstra. Business and brands are
considered to be “look- a- likes” by the customers. Differentiation method is the best method
which can be adopted by Telstra as it will assist it in making the people aware of the business
and make it a desirable brand. Since almost all age group and category of people belong to the
target audience of Telstra, it will be beneficial to spread awareness and it will certainly spread
slowly and gradually. Various angles will be used for the purpose of analyzing the brand image
data such as normalized scores, absolute endorsements, perceptual maps through correspondence
analysis, share of endorsements, category driver analysis through Jaccard analysis (Song, Sheinin
& Yoon, 2016).
Therefore, the brand decision making should be based on the basis of communication evaluation
and differentiation methods and models for brand health tracking. It will further assist in
assessing the brand image in the market and will allow taking the needed decisions in order to
establish its position in the market.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that the positioning of the brand must be ensured in the minds of
the target customers. Secondary data collection approach has been selected in this report for the
purpose of performing brand health tracking and brand evaluation. The recommended methods
involve communication evaluation and differentiation method on the basis of which Telstra can
make brand related decisions. Business and brands are considered to be “look- a- likes” by the
customers. Differentiation method is the best method which can be adopted by Telstra as it will
assist the company in making the people aware of the business. This will further provide answers

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regarding questions relating to customer behavior and satisfaction. Therefore, the Brand Health
Tracking (BHT) approach plays a significant role in business as it is a strategic tool for
measuring the health of the brand. This is due to the fact that customized tracking surveys are
needed for evaluating the different issues faced by the brand.

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