brands inyour competitive “ space .” B u s i n e s s F i n a n c e

You’ve landed your first job as an assistant to a brand manager. Your boss, Miranda Priestly, wants to make sure your
company’s brand is remaining competitive, so she assigns you this project:

Review all publicly available information related to your focal brand and the product category

Prepare a detailed analysis of your focal brand and product category, and

Make three recommendations to improve your focal brand’s competitive position based on the findings of your

research. (recommendations should be specific to the US market.

For each deliverable please lead with a memo to your boss, Miranda Priestly. This one-page document should include

all pertinent info: to whom, from whom, date, subject, and a brief description of what is attached, and any pertinent

info your boss should be aware of regarding your progress. This should be a stand alone page, meaning do not start

your actual report below this information. (search google for memo templates) Remember you want to inspire

confidence in your boss that you’re on the right track and will deliver the final report on time.

Requirement

What is the market situation for the category? Provide a short review of the market situation facing the brands in

your competitive “space.” You should examine industry sales at the monetary level for the most recent 3-5 years,

forecasts if available, trends within subsectors of your industry and market shares of main players.

This section should address issues happening at the macro level, also known as an “environmental scan.” Topics

such as; key consumer trends, a crucial political issue, a critical technological change, a shift in the nature of the

competitive landscape, and/or a key environmental force affecting the segment and competition. Choose issues

that generally affect the performance of all players (i.e., some brands are affected more and some less, but the

issues affect the group as a whole). Remember to keep analysis at macro level, not just category trends!

You will want to refer primarily to the concepts discussed in Ch. 3 on Marketing Environment, Ch. 5 on

Consumer Behavior.