MKT Brand Intelligence

A guide to analyzing a brand or group of products for use in all MKT courses.

Markets

First, go to the brand or company web site (not the corporate one).

Check to see how many brand extension there are. Mars Inc, a private company, has different web sites for each of their brands - M&Ms, Uncle Ben's, Pedigree, Whiskas, etc. These all have their own web sites separate from the Mars Inc. The Mars Inc page does have a list of brands: https://www.mars.com/made-by-mars

Check Mintel Academic Reports for the market of the product line.
Check Passport for any market data or analysis of the market for the product line.

You might want to each go to a local store to see product placement on the shelf (shelf space & height) and check the price. Get permission before taking a picture of the store display (you don't want to be suspected of corporate espionage). Go to specialty and general stores. If it is in a grocery store, try more than one chain in different economic neighborhoods.

Check ABI/INFORM. Search for your brand and the markets:

Whiskas AND markets

Some brand names are regular words and can result in many false hits. For those do something to narrow it down:

Pedigree AND "dog food" AND markets
"Pedigree brand" AND markets

Collect advertisements on the web, print, and TV/cable. If you can get it, you can do radio, too. Not all stations have full recordings of specific broadcasts. Keep track of where & when you found the ad. Name the show or web site it was linked to.

Check for coupons. (Sunday &, locally, Wednesday are the big inserts & coupon days in newspapers, Tuesday is the coupon mailers)

Mintel Academic Reports

Market research reports on U.S. consumer markets in sectors like beauty, food, health, household goods, retail, technology, travel, and lifestyles.

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Passport
Note: This resource requires ASU authentication while accessing on-campus.
Maximum Concurrent Users: Unlimited
Contains information on key business intelligence on countries, companies, markets and consumers. It is an integrated on-line information system covering over 360 markets and 227 countries including socioeconomic profiles and reports for 850 cities of the world.
ABI/INFORM Collection

Access full-text business and economics journals, dissertations, working papers, and key periodicals like "The Economist" and "The Wall Street Journal", along with detailed company and industry reports.