Auditing is more of an accounting term. It is associated with review, check, inspection, appraisal and assessment. Over time every profession adopts this term to check efficiency or otherwise of their systems, professionals. It is common today to hear personnel audit, store audit etc. As brand begins to grow, it will be needful to conduct brand audit. Brand audits helps to know the present brand value. Brand value is the financial brand status in terms of the net present value of financial benefit derived from the brand. Brand audit helps to know when to invest in building the brand and when to assess the impact of the brand investment. Brand audits also help to check brand awareness, brand knowledge as well as visibility and perception. In addition to the above brand audit will aid proper understanding of brand equity.

I like another online view that states that ‘A brand audit provides a breakdown of an organization’s brand and its brand management and marketing effectiveness.  It assesses a brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.  It identifies brand development opportunities including those achieved by brand repositioning and brand extension.  The audit should result in recommendations to improve brand equity, brand positioning, and brand management and marketing effectiveness’. Someone may ask when should brand audit be conducted?. I am of the opinion that when the following situations apply, there may be an urgent need. One, when there appears to be a shift in focus of the brand. This may be attributed to factors not initially planned for. Two, when there is growth. As a start up, the brand may have about twenty staff, with annual budget of two million, when these number increase and the brand is doing business running to  multi-millions which require thousands of hands, there is need to check the brand’s blood pressure. Another worthwhile reason to conduct brand audit is when the brand is expanding its scope across territorial reach.

When a thorough brand audit is to be conducted, the brand may need the guidance of an external consultant. This helps to remove personal, in house prejudices from the result. Whichever model the brand wants to adopt-in-house or external consultancy, the following areas need to be covered by a sustainable brand audit. How is the strategy doing? The marketing approach, external stockholder’s perception, communication procedure in terms of their effectiveness, employee capacity to deliver process and to represent the brand among other factors must be given priority

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