does the store need re-branding

ESSAY QUESTION

The following appeared in a market research report examining consumer perceptions of a chain of clothing stores:

"A recent survey commissioned by the market research department of XY Gen Stores indicated a high level of recognition among consumers of the brand and the nature of the apparel sold in XY Gen Stores. However, the survey also indicated that approximately 60% of those surveyed that recognized the name of XY Gen Stores had never shopped at one of the company's stores. Because of this result, XY Gen Stores executives should launch a significant rebranding and marketing campaign to change the company's image and thereby bring new consumers into the stores.

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. Point out flaws in the argument's logic and analyze the argument's underlying assumptions. In addition, evaluate how supporting evidence is used and what evidence might counter the argument's conclusion. You may also discuss what additional evidence could be used to strengthen the argument or what changes would make the argument more logically sound.

MY RESPONSE

The market research contains the argument that XY Gen Stores is recognized by the customers, but 60 % of the customers who recognize the brand have never shopped at one of the company's stores. The author of the marketing research decided that the best for XY Gen Stores would be to launch a re-branding and to change a company image. He claims that these actions will attract customers who heard about brand but have never thought to buy it.

I think that there are some flaws which create ambiguity in the report. First of all, the author told that there is a high level of recognition of the brand. But he did not tell the precise data. It would be useful to know how many percent of customers recognize the brand. To prove the fact that the brand recognition is really high this indicator should be compared with the industry average or prior year data.

Also author noted that 60% of the potential customers recognize brand but have never got the idea to try it. As an owner or executive of XY Gen Stores I would like to get to know two facts related with this statement. First, what is proportion of this group of customers to other people who can be customers? Is this number material in comparison with number of people who have never heard about the brand? If yes, I would like to get to ask a second question. What is the reason that the people who already know about the brand not to shop at XY Gen store?

The marketing specialist who wrote a report proposed a quite expensive action - re-branding. But why did he decide that the company actually need it? Maybe the people who recognize the brand but do not uses it do not think that brand has a bad reputation? Maybe the store is far from their houses and they prefer to shop at the stores nearby? Before considering the idea of re-branding the author of the marketing report should name the reasons to do so. In the argument above those reasons are missing.

Also the marketing specialist did not tell anything about the influence of the re-branding on the existing customers who shop at XY gen. How will re-branding influence on them? Will it be possible that some existing customers will stop buying from XY Gen in the result of re-branding?

So, I think that the author of the marketing research did a good statistical job. But his interpretation of the data is not quite clear. It can be that he just skipped some assumptions about which I have already mentioned in my critique. But it is also possible that the agency did not collect enough verifiable data and conducted the consulting intuitively. But, anyway, as a CEO or a major shareholder of the company I will require detailed calculations supporting the inferences made by the author. And if I did not get a reasonable explanation of the course of action proposed in the report I will never hire this marketing agency again.