Introduction to Branding

How to write a great brand plan

The purpose of this course

This course is designed to help managers to write effective and insightful brand plans. It covers the key stages in the brand planning process including market and brand situation analysis, targeting future brand propositions, developing integrated communications and planning and controlling brand performance. It aims to achieve this in a fun, interactive and stimulating environment.

Who this course is for

This workshop will be especially useful for marketers when they have to prepare a brand plan for the first time, or are reviewing the effectiveness of their current plans. It is also invaluable for senior managers having to evaluate the brand plans submitted to them by specialists.

Benefits for your organisation

Through many relevant examples and the application of a stimulating case study and group discussion, delegates will be able to write more effective brand plans. Individuals will learn leading-edge brand concepts, enabling them to bring new ideas and skills back to their organisations.

Benefits for you as an individual

This course will help you appreciate the key steps in developing a strategic brand plan. You will benefit by comparing your company’s approach to that of other delegates and the case studies used. You will leave equipped with a brand planning framework and an understanding of the key activities that build brand equity.

You will learn how to

• Identify the components of a brand
• Identify where consumer perceptions of a brand come from
• Conduct a market and brand situation analysis
• Generate ideas on a future brand strategy for a simulated brand scenario
• Critically assess a real brand plan
• Recognise some of the contemporary issues faced by brand managers and identify ways by which they might be tackled in your own organisation
• Structure the contents of a brand guideline document
• Write an insightful strategic brand plan

Course content

• Branding and the principles of marketing, brand benefits and components
• The overall brand planning process
• Market and brand situation analysis in order to identify consumer insight as the basis of future brand strategy
• How to generate ideas for brand strategy including the contents of the brand brief illustrated with examples of briefs from a number of leading brands
• The role of marketing communications and an example communications plan
• Planning and evaluating the performance of the brand
• Branding issues for your organisation and development of an action plan to address them

To take away from the course

• A strategic brand planning framework
• A market and brand situation analysis framework
• A brand positioning statement and brand key framework
• An outline model answer for the brand case study
• A real brand plan

Professional Standards

CIM’s Professional Marketing Standards have been developed through extensive research with employers and leading academics. All of our marketing qualifications and training courses are based on this framework ensuring that marketers at all levels of seniority gain the practical skills that employers require to improve business performance.