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Brand Audit

Also called brand review or brand health check

A brand audit is a structured review of how a brand is defined, presented and perceived, compared with what it is meant to be, ending with a list of what to change. It looks at the brand from two sides: inside the company (strategy, guidelines, the material people produce) and outside it (how customers, partners and the market see the brand). Companies usually run one before a rebrand, after a merger, when entering new markets, or every year or two as routine.

Updated

What a brand audit covers

Area Questions it answers
Strategy Is the positioning still accurate? Do employees describe the brand the same way?
Identity Are the logo, colours, typefaces and voice still fit for current channels?
Touchpoints Website, sales decks, trade fair stands, packaging, partner material: do they match the guidelines?
Assets How many versions of the logo and templates are in circulation? Which are out of date?
Perception What do customers and prospects associate with the brand? How does awareness compare with competitors?
Competitors How do competing brands present themselves, and where does the brand look like them?
Legal Are the name and marks registered in every market where they are used?

The internal part is about what the company controls. The external part, usually through interviews, surveys and search data, tells the company whether that work reaches anyone.

The ISO standard for brand evaluation

ISO 20671-1:2021, Brand evaluation, Part 1: Principles and fundamentals, sets out principles for evaluating a brand's strength: what an evaluation should look at and how its results should be reported. It is separate from ISO 10668, which covers monetary brand valuation. Most marketing teams do not run a formal ISO evaluation, but the standard is a useful reference when an audit has to be repeatable from one year to the next, or comparable across brands in a portfolio.

How to run a brand audit

  1. Set the scope. One brand or the portfolio, all markets or one region, the whole identity or only the visual side.
  2. Collect what exists. The current brand guidelines, and a sample of real material from each channel and region: decks, brochures, social posts, partner kits, signage.
  3. Inventory the brand files. Every logo file, template and brand image in circulation, where it is stored and who uses it.
  4. Compare with the guidelines. Mark each sample as consistent, partly consistent or off-brand, with the reason.
  5. Ask the outside. Customer interviews, a perception survey, sales feedback, and a review of how competitors present themselves.
  6. Report and decide. A short list of findings with an owner and a date for each, rather than a long report nobody acts on.

The asset side of a brand audit

In B2B companies, the visual findings of an audit often trace back to files rather than to the guidelines. Typical findings:

  • Four versions of the logo in active use, two of them retired years ago.
  • Regional sales teams using a deck template from before the last refresh.
  • A partner kit that still contains product photos whose licence has ended.
  • Customer logos used in case studies without a current agreement.
  • Templates rebuilt locally because the official ones were hard to find.

Auditing the asset library answers these directly: which files are current, which are used, which are never downloaded, and which have expired rights. The DAM audit checklist covers that review in detail. A brand audit is a periodic review. Checking each new asset as it arrives is brand compliance, and the result both aim for is brand consistency.

Brand audits in Freedam

For the asset part of an audit, Freedam supplies the evidence:

  • Quality grade. The library gets a grade from A to E from the metadata and brand rule sets you write, with the rules that fail most listed first and a link to the assets that fail each metadata rule. See governance.
  • Brand compliance status. Assets checked against your brand rules carry a reviewed status (Compliant, Partially compliant, Non-compliant or Not applicable), which can be used as a gallery filter to list every off-brand file. See brand compliance checks.
  • Unused files and failed searches. Analytics insights flag assets older than 90 days with no activity in the last 90 days, and search terms that keep returning no results.
  • Rights with end dates. Rights policies carry an expiry date, the rights policies page lists those that expire soon, and share links stop serving an asset once its licence has expired. See usage rights.
  • Who uses what. Share links record their views and downloads, and top and trending assets show which files people actually take.
  • History of each file. The version list shows who uploaded each version of a file, and the history tab lists workflow status changes with who made them and why.

Frequently asked questions

How often should you do a brand audit?

A full audit every one to two years, and before any rebrand or major market entry. The asset part can be checked more often, every quarter, because files drift faster than strategy.

What is the difference between a brand audit and a marketing audit?

A brand audit reviews the brand itself: identity, consistency and perception. A marketing audit reviews the whole marketing function: channels, budget, campaigns and results. A brand audit is often one section of a marketing audit.

Who should run a brand audit?

The brand lead usually owns it, with sales and regional teams supplying material and feedback. An outside agency is useful for the perception research, because customers speak more openly to a third party.

Related terms

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