A Semiotic Brand Audit for Brand Valuation of
Complan & Glucon D
The Challenge: Zydus Wellness had bid to buy the Complan and Glucon D brands from Kraft Heinz. They wanted an assessment of the Brand’s Equity, not just via consumers’ retained perceptions in long-term memory but also via a Semiotic Brand Audit, in order to understand the worth of the brand in symbolic terms.
Our Approach: A brand’s equity cannot be understood in isolation or only by looking back into the history of the brand’s communication. It needs to be decoded and compared with the category as a sign system – a system of signs, symbols, codes and narratives/narrative tropes. It’s in the comparison that brand distinctiveness as well as brand strengths and weaknesses can be identified. We decoded packs, TVCs and historic advertising of the brands.
Insights from Semiotic Decoding:
Given below are some of the key category codes that opened up deeper insight into consumption and brand role.
a. The centrality of milk, the product as a milk additive and mothers’ belief in the goodness and nourishment of milk for growing children. We asked, “what would happen to this centrality with the growth of fortified milk?”.
b. School life is anchored on competition and excellence with the accompanying stress and pressure to win. Children’s growth is not a goal in itself, but as a means to this end, of winning. We asked what would happen if this changed? What are the alternative narratives that exist today and could potentially become relevant in the future?
c. A visual audit of signs & symbols revealed the ones that were unique to brands and the ones that were common to the category.
Results:
The marketing team got a deeper insight into the strategic asset that the company had bid for and how to take it forward.