Brand Audit of a Big Issue Magazine - Essay Example

? The Big Issue Magazine Introduction The ‘big issue’ is a weekly entertainment and news magazine whose styling resembles that of a commercial magazine. Homeless people sell this magazine on the streets of many British cities and not in shops or newspaper kiosk. The main reason why homeless people sell the “big issue” magazine is because the company aims at offering employments for this individuals so that they can earn and reduce poverty (Oxfam, 2004). The price of these magazines the street vendors buy the magazine for one GBP from the big issue Ltd and sell it at an approximated price of 2GBP to the street customers. The organization behind the “big issue” magazine is divided into two parts, where there is the part that produces and sells the magazine to the street vendor network. The other part is a nonprofit foundation that helps the street vendors regains control of their lives (Oxfam, 2004). The magazines have transformed lives of many vendors who are in a position to feed and support their families. However, the sales of the magazines have subsided currently, due to the recession, which has affected advertising and general sales. Prior to recession, national and international donor funding are drying up. This paper will outline a brand-audit that should be performed to improve the image of the magazine and improve sales. How to upgrade the image and improve sales of the “big issue” magazine Image impacts a lot in a business especially when it comes to selling printed articles. This is the case because the appearance of a magazine determines its ability to attract customers in a distance. The “big issue” magazine falls in this category because image rebranding is needed to improve its old common appearance to a more appealing appearance (Rowell, 2012). The marketing managers should critically look into the image issue of the magazine as well as its contents. The new look of the magazine’s cover should be redesigned attractively is that it can stand out and “beat” the rest of the magazines. The customers should be able to notice and pick up the magazine instantly rather than flick through other magazines in search of the most interesting magazines. More so, the content in the magazine should be able to be captivating enough to keep the customers coming for more copies every day. In order to achieve this, the marketing team should consider on reflecting a shift to deeper and more political content because politics because politics has interesting contents that everyone yearn to know about. Hence, with these two achievements of rebranding the cover and contents of the magazines, customer’s will be change their usual perception towards the magazine by being attracted to it which eventually leads to more sales (Rowell, 2012). Customer service is a crucial aspect in any business and the big issue magazine should consider it in order to improve customer’s perception and increase sales. The vendors of the “big issue” magazine are homeless people and this has lead to situations where passersby insult and under grade them simply because of their status (Oxfam, 2004). The management of the “big issue” magazine should take another step of collaborating with numerous colleges within the city in order to offer these vendors with basic customer care skills. This will help them learn people body language and the telltale signs of aggression so as to help in confronting and solving possible disputes before they happen. The vendors will also learn how to be friendly and approachable which in turn engages customers in conversation. This effort will improve vendor’s ability to attract customers and increase sales of the “big issue” magazine. Advertising is the basic boost of sales of any business because it reminds customers of their favorite product as well as informs them if there are any changes that their favorite product has undergone. In our case, the “big issue” advertisement could fall in the two categories of informing customers of the current rebranding as well as remind the customers that the magazine is still selling on their usual streets and joints. The marketing management should implement measures of marketing the magazine using the current digitalized forms (Rowell, 2012). In spite of the fact that the television is somehow not the latest trend, but it still plays a crucial role in advertising because many people globally have access to the television. This means that television adverts will be essential in advertising the current state of the “big issue” magazine. The ball therefore lies on the marketing team whose duty is to hire the best creative advertising agents to lay out the advertising strategies. Prior to the television, the marketing team should consider online adverts (Rowell, 2012). Online adverts are the most effective adverts because the internet is available in most mobile gadgets that everyone owns. The best thing about online adverts is that it is accessible anytime and as much times as the viewer wants hence it has no restrictions. The big issue magazine should target the most common and favorite sites of the web and place their commercials in it. This will spur the needed attention as well as convince the viewers to go and grab a copy of the magazine. This will in turn improve sales of the outstanding magazine and provide necessities to the homeless vendors (Oxfam, 2004). In the same field of increasing sales, the management team of the “big issue” magazine should see into it that it collaborates with awareness programs so as to help in selling brand of the magazine. This means that the vendors and other teams of the company should participate in subsequent awareness campaign like health promotion and other community campaigns. Health promotion could be the diabetes walk or the HIV/AIDS awareness walk while community campaigns could be the tree-planting day and other celebrations. By doing so, the community gets to know and associate with the magazines counterparts, which in turn improves the community’s perception not only towards the vendors but also towards the magazine. Improving people’s perception leads to more people buying the magazine, which leads to increased sales. Conclusion The big issue magazine has an audited circulation of 135,000 copies a week and read by 670,000 people. In 2011, it contributed ?15m to the economy, of which ?8m came from sales made by more than 2,500 homeless and vulnerably housed vendors that sell the magazine. This is a tremendous step to the company; however, more needs to improvement. I believe that with the above stated strategies that outline the way in which sales could rise the company would sell more and increases sales (Rowell, 2012). Therefore, the marketing team of the “big issue” should reconsider its marketing strategies and customer service with which it could see the sales of the copies hitting over 200 copies a week. This will bring profit to the company and offer the extremely needed basics to the homeless families. References Oxfam. (2004). Developing rights: Teaching rights and responsibilities for ages 11-14 : 2004 update. Oxford: Oxfam GB. Rowell, A. (2012). Don't Worry (It's Safe to Eat): "The True Story of GM Food, BSE and Foot and Mouth". CRC. Press Read More