Google Shares Brand Audit - Essay Example

The brand audit covers four major areas, brand knowledge, brand recognition, brand awareness, and brand image. Brand knowledge means brand awareness whether and when consumers know the brand and brand image, and what associations consumers have with the brand. Brand knowledge measures are sometimes called “customer mindset” measures because they capture how the brand is perceived in the customer's mind. Brand awareness measures the accessibility of the brand in the memory. Brand awareness can be measured through brand recall or brand recognition. Brand recognition reflects the ability of consumers to confirm prior exposure to the brand and recognizes that it is an “old” brand that they have been before and not a “new” brand that they are seeing for the first time. Brand image is defined as consumer perceptions of a brand and is measured as the brand associations held in a consumer’s memory.

Google has bagged a prominent place in the first 10 major brands in the world. It has dominated to expand into software and video, mapping and web browsing its brand value had shot up by 43%, from $17.8 billion to $ 25.59 billion. (Top 100 Most Powerful Brands 08).
Young and Rubicam developed a proprietary tool to measure brand asset value. It has four dimensions the four dimensions are (1) the brand’s perceived differentiation (2) its relevance (3) its knowledge and (4) its esteem

Young and Rubicam's method depends upon secondary data based on primary data collected through questionnaires for brand audit purposes.
Market Survey:
To evaluate the four parameters of brand knowledge, brand recognition, brand awareness, and brand image an international market survey was conducted in ten major countries using the Internet. The population of the survey included students, teachers, educational institutions, industrial establishments, banking and insurance industry the sample questionnaire is enclosed the survey revealed that Google occupies 10Th place among the major brands in the world in all types of commercial and industrial activities and first place in internet services.

Conclusion:
The four major parameters of a brand audit are supplemented by the brand positioning statement. “A brand positioning statement describes the "mental space" a brand should occupy in the minds of a target audience. It serves as an internal document which guides most of a company's marketing communications strategies, programs, and tactics.” (Brand Glossary: Brand Positioning Statement).

The more employees the organization can turn into brand champions, the better will it be equipped to build and maintain strong brand equity.
We can find the strength of a brand by looking into the following factors,
• How big is the brand in comparison to its competitors?
• How far does the brand reach geographically?
• How is the brand sold, and how is it purchased?
• Who are the brand’s customers and channel partners?
• Where is the brand in its lifecycle?
• How is the brand doing?
(Smith and Jones).

Questionnaire:
General information
Name :
Occupation :
Age :
Sex :
Country :

1 which search engine you are choosing for information?
2 How often do you use search engines every day?
(Less than 1hr less than 4hr more than 4hr)
3 Are you satisfied with their performance?
4 How long have you been using the search engine?
5 when did you hear Google for the first time?
6 when did you see the brand for the first time?
7 When you think of search engines which brand comes to your mind first?
8 When you think of Google what comes to your mind?
9 What does Google mean to you?
10 When I say Google what kind of feeling does it evoke?
11 Please rank the search engine according to its performance.
(Google yahoo Rediff)
12 Are you extremely loyal to Google?
13 Are you fully satisfied with Google?
14 which factor in Google attracted you to prefer the brand? Read More