Com220: Strategic Advertising - D'Avanzo: Situational Analysis Assignment

Use Company Websites to learn more about your brand and the company behind the brand.

Publicly Traded Companies: Annual Reports to investors and Integrated Reports can be a great source of information about the financial state of the company, as well as the values, strategies, and goals.

Integrated Annual Reports go beyond financials to place additional emphasis on values and sustainability.

Private Companies: Private companies are not required to disclose annual reports and financials, but you can still look to their websites to see:

• Current marketing choices
• Company priorities and values

**You will need to know the company behind your product/ brand to effectively complete the next steps of your research**

• Search for the company, not the brand, to get company profiles and more complete research.
• You may get two similar results (ie. Danone SA. and Danone North America Public Benefit Corporation). These are often related companies, sometimes one being the division for a particular geography. You can check with both, but you may need to look to the larger company to get the most information.
• Keep in mind that the information that you find will be for the full company, not your specific brand.
• Look to the top of the company profile for competitors and industry information.

Tips:

• Make sure that you are looking at the company that you think you are. Are there multiple companies with similar names?
• Company competitiors are listed, but you may want to define competitors differently based upon your needs to come up with your own list
  • ex. Soft Drink Companies are listed as competitors, but it would make more sense to list energy drink manufacturers specifically
• A SWOT analysis may be provided. This is a a good source of information, but your own SWOT should be for the specific product rather than the whole company. 

Additional databases to try:

Search Options

• Search by industry (such as "cruise lines") and select an appropriate result tagged as an Industry

OR

• Search for your company and see recommended industries

The report is searchable, but it is recommended that you click through full report using the menu on the left. Pay explicit attention to the following sections:

• "Products and Markets" to look for comments on your particular product.
• "Industry Outlook" to look ahead at what is predicted to come.

Notes: 

• Some products and brands fall more cleanly into defined industry reports than others.
• You may need to select a larger industry that covers much more than just your specific product. You will need to pull out relevant content from the report.
• If your company doesn't yield search results, you can try a competitor, but be sure you are selecting the industry relevant to your product

Use Passport to consider current consumer trends.

• Agree to the terms of service
• From the top menu, select  Consumers fromt he top menu and then Select LifeStyles.
• Select "2025 Consumer Trends" in the purple box on the bottom right.

These are trends observed and predicted to be effecting consumer behavior over the next year. 

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