MRKT 670 Week 7 Brand Audit: Course Project Example

Brand Audit: Blue Ridge Creamery, Store Brands and the Case for a Sharper Quality Story

Executive Summary

Blue Ridge Creamery, a family-owned ice cream brand sold in about 340 grocery stores in three states, holds strong associations with local origin and real ingredients and earns high ratings for perceived quality. Its loyalty, however, is shallow, and the revenue premium it earns over premium store brands has fallen by nearly a quarter in three years. The audit finds that the brand's quality advantage is real in consumers' minds but poorly communicated at the shelf, where store brands now look similar and cost a dollar less. The central recommendation is to sharpen the brand's quality story around a single point of difference, milk from named farms within 100 miles, and to launch the planned novelty line under the Blue Ridge name only after the core pint's position is secured.

Background and Audit Questions

Blue Ridge Creamery was founded in 1948 in western Virginia and is still owned by the founding family. It makes pints, half-gallons and seasonal flavors at one plant and sells them through two regional grocery chains, several independent grocers and two scoop shops. Over the past three years, unit sales of pints have fallen about 2 percent a year, while the two largest chains in its territory have introduced premium store-brand ice creams with similar ingredient claims. The company also plans to introduce ice cream sandwiches and bars next year.

Keller (2013) describes the brand audit as a comprehensive examination of a brand that assesses its health, uncovers its sources of equity and suggests ways to improve and build on that equity. This audit addresses three questions set in the proposal: how strong and distinctive Blue Ridge's associations are compared with the store brands, whether its price advantage over store brands still matches its standing with buyers, and whether shoppers think sandwiches and bars belong under the Blue Ridge name.

Brand Inventory

Brand Elements

The name Blue Ridge Creamery suggests the mountains of its home region and a dairy, which makes it meaningful and memorable, two of the criteria Keller (2013) sets for brand elements. It is less protectable than an invented name, since "Blue Ridge" appears in many regional business names. The logo, a hand-drawn ridge line above the name in navy script, is natural and moderately elaborate, the kind of design Henderson and Cote (1998) found to support accurate recognition. The pint carton is cream-colored with a navy band, and the flavor name appears in a small serif type. The packaging has not changed in eleven years.

Products and Pricing

The line includes 18 year-round flavors and four seasonal flavors, sold in pints and half-gallons. The shelf price of a pint is $6.49 in the two large chains, compared with $5.49 for each chain's premium store brand and $5.99 for the leading national super-premium brand on promotion weeks. Blue Ridge runs temporary price reductions about one week in six.

Distribution

Pints are stocked in 340 grocery stores, 290 of them in the two large chains. In both chains, the store brands have gained shelf space in the past two years: store managers report that Blue Ridge now has six to eight facings per store, down from ten to twelve.

Communications

The company spends little on paid advertising. Its communications are the carton itself, a website, an Instagram account with about 18,000 followers, in-store sampling about twice a year in each chain and sponsorship of county fairs. Messages emphasize heritage, "since 1948," and family ownership. The carton mentions "local milk" in small type on the side panel. The Instagram account posts about twice a week, mostly photographs of new flavors and fair booths, and its comments show an engaged but older audience; posts about the dairy farms that supply the milk draw roughly twice the engagement of flavor posts, although they make up fewer than one post in ten. The website lists flavors and store locations but does not name the farms or explain what "local" means.

Competitors

The two store brands, introduced in the past three years, use cream-colored cartons, short ingredient lists and the words "small batch" on the front. The national super-premium brand competes on richness and indulgence and advertises nationally. The inventory shows that Blue Ridge's distinctive claims, local milk and family ownership, are not visible from the front of the carton, while the store brands have adopted a look that resembles it.

Brand Exploratory

Method

An online survey of 152 adults in the brand's three states who had bought premium ice cream in the past three months was conducted, along with interviews with five grocery store managers. The survey measured brand equity for Blue Ridge and for the larger chain's store brand using items adapted from the Yoo and Donthu (2001) scale, whose three parts ask about loyalty, about quality as buyers perceive it and about awareness tied to associations. It also asked respondents to choose words they associated with each brand and to rate Blue Ridge on the five brand personality dimensions identified by Aaker (1997). Since equity, in Keller (1993), traces to how well buyers know a brand and to the strength, appeal and uniqueness of what they link to it, the survey asked about each of those in turn.

Survey Results

Blue Ridge led the store brand on perceived quality and loyalty but trailed slightly on awareness and associations, largely because nearly every shopper in the chain sees the store brand. The most frequent associations for Blue Ridge were "local" (64 percent), "real ingredients" (51 percent), "old-fashioned" (38 percent) and "expensive" (29 percent). For the store brand, the most frequent were "good value" (58 percent) and "real ingredients" (44 percent). The overlap on "real ingredients" shows that the store brand has neutralized one of Blue Ridge's former advantages. On brand personality, Blue Ridge scored highest on sincerity (4.3 of 5) and lowest on excitement (2.6) and sophistication (2.5).

Loyalty was shallow even among those who rated quality highly. Of respondents who rated Blue Ridge's quality 4 or 5, only 41 percent said they would buy it if the store brand were on sale. Buyers under 40 were less likely than older buyers to name Blue Ridge first when asked which premium ice cream they bought most often, a pattern consistent with the managers' description of an aging customer base.

Open-ended answers added texture. Asked what made Blue Ridge different, respondents most often mentioned taste and texture, then the brand's long history, and only a few mentioned the farms, even though "local" was the brand's most frequent association. Several respondents wrote that they "used to" buy Blue Ridge regularly and now bought "whatever is on sale," which echoes the shallow loyalty in the scale results.

Store Manager Interviews

The five managers agreed that Blue Ridge is a "known local name" with steady but aging buyers. Three said shoppers often cannot tell the store brand and Blue Ridge apart at a glance. Two said that sampling events produce a visible lift in sales for about two weeks. All five said the chains are likely to keep expanding store-brand space unless national or regional brands produce stronger sales per foot of shelf.

Brand Resonance

Keller (2013) organizes customer-based brand equity as a pyramid of building blocks, from salience at the base, through performance and imagery, to judgments and feelings, and finally resonance, the intense, active loyalty at the top. Applying the model to the findings shows where Blue Ridge is strong and where it is thin.

Salience is moderate: most buyers know the brand when prompted, but it is less visible in the store than the chains' own labels. Performance is strong, as the perceived quality scores show, and imagery is clear but narrow, built on heritage and sincerity rather than on excitement or modern relevance. Judgments of quality and credibility are favorable. Feelings are warm but mild; respondents described the brand as "comforting" and "familiar" more often than "exciting" or "special." Resonance is where the brand falls short. Few customers show the behavioral loyalty, attachment, sense of community or active engagement that Keller places at the top of the pyramid, and the willingness of high-quality raters to switch on price shows it. The brand has the lower blocks in place; its task is to turn favorable judgments into a relationship strong enough to resist a dollar's difference.

Revenue Premium

Ailawadi et al. (2003) suggest gauging equity by how much more revenue a brand brings in than a store label in its category, a measure they showed to be simple and dependable. Using the company's scanner summaries for the two large chains, the audit compared monthly pint revenue per store for Blue Ridge and for each chain's premium store brand. Blue Ridge's revenue premium fell from about $412 per store per month three years ago to about $318 this year, a decline of 23 percent. Most of the decline came from lost volume rather than lower prices, consistent with the reduced shelf space.

The finding fits research on national brands and private labels. In a study of 22,623 consumers in 23 countries, the price premium consumers were willing to pay for national brands over private labels depended on their perception of the national brand's relative quality and tended to fall as private labels matured (Steenkamp et al., 2010). Blue Ridge still enjoys a quality advantage in consumers' minds, but the shrinking revenue premium suggests that the advantage is not strong enough at the shelf to overcome a dollar's difference in price. Keller and Lehmann (2006) note that brand equity shows itself through customer mindset, product-market outcomes and financial value, and in this case the mindset measure and the market measure are moving apart, which is a warning that the mindset advantage may erode next.

Positioning

Keller (2013) describes positioning as identifying the points of parity a brand must match and the points of difference it can own. For premium ice cream in this region, the points of parity are rich taste, a short ingredient list and familiar flavors, all of which the store brands now claim. Blue Ridge's possible points of difference are local milk, family ownership since 1948 and seasonal regional flavors.

The survey suggests that "local" is the strongest candidate, since it is Blue Ridge's most frequent association and absent from the store brand's list. Research on brand signals explains why it could justify a premium. Erdem and Swait (1998) argue that a credible brand lowers consumers' perceived risk and information costs, and that consistency between what a brand claims and what it delivers is the source of that credibility. A local-milk claim that is specific and verifiable, naming the farms, can serve as such a signal, while "small batch," which anyone can print, cannot.

The audit's core finding is that Blue Ridge owns a real point of difference, local milk, but hides it on the side of the carton while competitors borrow its look on the front. A proposed brand mantra, the short internal phrase Keller recommends for guiding brand decisions, is "real farms, real close," which would rule out changes such as sourcing milk from outside the region to cut costs.

The Planned Novelty Extension

The company plans to sell ice cream sandwiches and bars under the Blue Ridge name. In the classic extension studies by Aaker and Keller (1990), shoppers liked a new product under a familiar name best when the two product classes seemed to belong together and the parent brand already had a reputation for quality. A later test of ten candidate factors at once ranked fit first among the drivers of extension success, ahead of marketing support, consumers' conviction about the parent, retailers' willingness to stock the extension and consumers' experience with the parent (Völckner & Sattler, 2006).

The survey asked respondents to rate the fit of Blue Ridge sandwiches and bars on a seven-point scale. The mean was 5.4, and 68 percent rated the fit 5 or higher, which suggests good perceived fit. The concern lies elsewhere. Retailer acceptance, one of the factors that research identifies, is weak while the chains are expanding their own brands, and marketing support will be thin if the company spreads a small budget across a new line. An extension launched while the core pint is losing shelf space risks weakening both.

The company could also consider a sub-brand, such as "Blue Ridge Farmstand Bars," which would borrow the parent's quality associations while signaling a new format. Keller (2013) discusses how sub-brands can let a new product draw on a parent brand's equity while establishing its own associations. Because the novelties fit the parent well in consumers' eyes, a sub-brand is not needed to protect the parent from a poor fit, but it could give the line a more playful identity that appeals to the younger buyers the core brand is losing, adding the excitement the brand personality scores show is missing.

Measurement Plan

To track the effect of the recommendations, the company should repeat the brand equity survey each spring with the same scale items and association questions, so that changes in perceived quality, loyalty and the share of buyers naming "local" can be compared year to year. It should calculate the revenue premium quarterly from scanner summaries in the two chains, since that measure responded most clearly to the loss of shelf space. Sampling events should be logged with store and date so that their sales effects can be estimated. Together these measures would show whether a clearer point of difference is strengthening the mindset and whether the market outcome follows.

Recommendations

• 1. Move the local-milk claim to the front of the carton, naming the partner farms and their distance from the plant, and redesign the carton's front panel to separate it visually from the store brands while keeping the ridge logo and navy band that support recognition.
• 2. Adopt the brand mantra "real farms, real close" internally and review every product and sourcing decision against it.
• 3. Increase in-store sampling from twice a year to every other month in the two chains, since managers report a reliable two-week lift and sampling lets shoppers test the quality claim directly.
• 4. Present the chains with sales-per-foot data from sampling periods to defend shelf space, using the chains' own scanner summaries.
• 5. Reduce temporary price reductions from one week in six to one in eight, using the savings to fund sampling, so that the brand competes on its point of difference rather than on price.
• 6. Delay the novelty line by one season and launch it first in the independent grocers and scoop shops, where retailer acceptance is high, before seeking space in the chains.

Limitations of the Audit

The audit's evidence has limits that the company should weigh. The survey drew 152 respondents from an online panel, so it may overrepresent shoppers who are comfortable answering surveys and underrepresent rural buyers who shop at independent grocers. It compared Blue Ridge with only one chain's store brand, and the second chain's label may be perceived differently. The revenue premium was calculated from summaries for the two large chains and excludes the independent stores and scoop shops, where the brand may be stronger. Finally, five store managers can describe what they see on the shelf but not why individual shoppers choose. A larger survey that includes in-store intercepts in independent grocers would strengthen the next audit.

Conclusion

Blue Ridge Creamery has the foundation of a strong regional brand: high perceived quality, a sincere personality and an association with local origin that its competitors cannot copy honestly. Its problem is that these strengths are hidden at the point of purchase while the store brands have closed the visible gap. The decline in revenue premium shows that the market has begun to notice. By putting its point of difference on the front of the carton, defending its shelf space with evidence and delaying an extension until the core is secure, the brand can turn its quality advantage back into a premium customers will pay.

References

Aaker, D. A., & Keller, K. L. (1990). Consumer evaluations of brand extensions. Journal of Marketing, 54(1), 27-41. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299005400102

Aaker, J. L. (1997). Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Research, 34(3), 347-356. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224379703400304

Ailawadi, K. L., Lehmann, D. R., & Neslin, S. A. (2003). Revenue premium as an outcome measure of brand equity. Journal of Marketing, 67(4), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.67.4.1.18688

Erdem, T., & Swait, J. (1998). Brand equity as a signaling phenomenon. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 7(2), 131-157. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327663jcp0702_02

Henderson, P. W., & Cote, J. A. (1998). Guidelines for selecting or modifying logos. Journal of Marketing, 62(2), 14-30. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299806200202

Keller, K. L. (1993). Conceptualizing, measuring, and managing customer-based brand equity. Journal of Marketing, 57(1), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299305700101

Keller, K. L. (2013). Strategic brand management: Building, measuring, and managing brand equity (4th ed.). Pearson.

Keller, K. L., & Lehmann, D. R. (2006). Brands and branding: Research findings and future priorities. Marketing Science, 25(6), 740-759. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.1050.0153

Steenkamp, J.-B. E. M., Van Heerde, H. J., & Geyskens, I. (2010). What makes consumers willing to pay a price premium for national brands over private labels? Journal of Marketing Research, 47(6), 1011-1024. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.47.6.1011

Völckner, F., & Sattler, H. (2006). Drivers of brand extension success. Journal of Marketing, 70(2), 18-34. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.70.2.018

Yoo, B., & Donthu, N. (2001). Developing and validating a multidimensional consumer-based brand equity scale. Journal of Business Research, 52(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0148-2963(99)00098-3