Brand Management 5

How does branding work?

Tesco is a global organisation and is a house of brands serving customers/consumers with different brands/products for each segment. Tesco’s vision statement is to be the most highly valued business by the customers we serve, the communities in which we operate, our loyal and committed colleagues and of course, our shareholders. The statement pointing out the satisfaction of all the stakeholders is a crucial aspect, in other words, customer satisfaction is the business promise. 

It shows that their vision is effective, and clarifies how Tesco is positioning its future idea. It shows that Tesco is trying to be highly valued and continue to fulfill the commitments to meet customers needs, employees, and stakeholders to verify their loyalty.

• Flexible for all. To be favorable to everyone. Tesco has designed itself in a way that can serve everyone, including online shoppers.

And their Mission is based on Improving health, Distinguished quality Improving lives. Tesco core value is, no one tries harder than us. Their core value is based on three values that drive their business. One is, understand customers. The second one is, be first to meet their needs, and the last one is, act responsibly for our communities. And all these are talking about customer satisfaction. Then trying to betterment those things is the heart of Tesco. And Tesco’s mission is about employee satisfaction.

The mission is all about listening and talking to people by using all the tools at their disposal via Tesco ClubCard data to social media and then acting by changing and innovating to meet their needs. Now the question is if these codes are aligned using the three B’s tool. What does Tesco F&F focus on more?

On the business side, according to the Tesco Vision statement, their business purpose is all about customer satisfaction. Tesco is a global organisation providing various products from different brands, plus Tesco is in house products. They position their products via media vehicles and the internet. Their (STP) “Segmentation, Targeting and positioning” in marketing is differentiated for some products but not all. For instance, Tesco F&F clothing (STP) is not aligned with their business purpose because they don’t provide an online shopping facility available for F&F Clothing. They are only available online through the brand NEXTs online shopping website. Another issue is that the F&F clothing products are only available to customers via large Tesco stores and NEXTs stores. So, it is not an easy journey for the customers to purchase the products. Why? Because they are not available online, and secondly they are not available in all Tesco stores. Therefore, the customer/consumer journey is not aligned with the business purpose, meaning the 3E’s business model is not functioning positively (mentioned in blog 2). This is part of External Brand Health which I will write about in future blogs. 

Thr F&F clothing is only available in the UK and maybe in Germany. Also, the clothing designs are not segmented based on ethnicity, religions and races where the customers come from different types of cultures and tastes. So, this is another reason why Tesco is not doing well as it has seen via primary research on the SurveyMonkey How did they get affected to buy them? Most of the users are affected by word of mouth as per primary research, 12.82% heard about F&F clothing on media, and 30.77% by word of mouth and the rest never heard of it. Figure 1

These factors are the lifestyles, values, culture, prejudice and beliefs of people and differ in different regions. Tesco’s Christmas advert in 2017 faced social media backlash and has negatively affected some of the customers. F&F clothing needs to consider the culture, lifestyles, values, beliefs and prejudice of people in those countries where F & F clothes are available. Communicating with customers in their local spoken language while respecting their beliefs and prejudices are the must that F&F marketing management need to consider effectively. And this is part of the Brand and the image, which sits in customers minds. So, as can be seen, The Business and Brand are not aligned within the Tesco organisation in the UK. 

This demonstrates that the 3B’s are not aligned within the F&F clothing because the Business dimension is not aligned with Brand.