SLP 4 FINAL - MHM 525

In business, branding is crucial to the success of the corporation. An organization needs to brand itself to ensure it stands out from the rest of the competition. The health care industry has many organizations that seek to stand out from the stiff competition in the industry. The health care organization selected for a brand audit is CVS Health. CVS Health is a leading American prescription drugs retailer and health care organization founded in 1963. The company has its headquarters in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. The size of the organization is huge as it has over 9700 retail locations and over 1100 walk-in health care clinics as of December 2016. The organization type is a prescription drugs retailer that provides other healthcare services to people. The average annual revenue of the organization is over $184 billion as of December 2017.

CVS Health has several brand elements that make the organization stand out from the rest of the firms in the healthcare industry. The first brand element is its logo which is a hard-angled heart red in colour with words CVS also written in bold red and the word Health written in black thin slab serif type. The other brand element is its slogan, which reads, “Health is everything”. The inherent attributes of the organization include its pricing where the business has come up with a new way to help people with the escalating prescription drug prices. The organization has a program to help improve the transparency of drug pricing and help customers to find alternative medication, which can save them money. The pricing models of the organization also offer rebates and discounts to the customers (Williams, Khanfar, Harrington, & Loudon, 2011).

The communications aspect of CVS Health is that the company has a number of ways to enhance its marketing. The firm has social media pages and a website that is constantly updated to provide individuals with the latest information about the organization and the different aspects people want to learn about the firm. The organization also has several advertisements that it use of help inform people of the various changes in the establishment. The organization also uses its distribution policies to market itself. The company was among the first organization to come up with a number of policies to be in line with the prescribing guidelines by the CDC to curb the opioid crisis in the United States.

The organization markets itself through participation in projects that involve the safe disposal of unused medication in its pharmacies and other places by providing disposal units. The competitive brand selected is Walgreens which the second in the industry after CVS Health. The two brands try to compete against each other all the time. There are many differences between CVS Health and Walgreens. On the issues of logos, the CVS Health logo differs a lot from that of Walgreens. The slogans that the two organization have also differ greatly. The CVS Health slogan “Health is everything is while the Walgreens slogan is “Trusted Since 1901”.

The two organizations have stiff competition but they have different marketing attributes. In terms of communications, CVS Health does a much better job than Walgreens because of its great social media presence. The distribution policies of CVS Health are also much better than Walgreens. The marketing attributes employed by CVS Health seem to be much better than Walgreens across different categories. The organization seems to be much better at branding than its competition, which has been in the industry for more years although Walgreens tends to market on its experience.

There are several recommendations to make that CVS Health can use for brand positioning and marketing strategies that will leverage and extend the brand effectiveness of the organization. According to Hassan, & Craft (2012), one of the strategies is to identify new target customers. The organization needs to come with a strategy to target a new customer base especially the youth. The organization seems not to do enough to target the youth and therefore the organization loses out to its competition especially when it comes to attracting the younger generation. The other recommendation to help with brand positioning is mergers and acquisitions. Although the organization has made major acquisitions in the past, it needs to ensure that it makes other acquisitions.

The mergers and acquisitions serve as a marketing strategy that the organization can use to ensure that the people know about the organization and the steps the organization makes to ensure that it improves the health care of the people. The establishment needs to be on the forefront to ensure that it is in a position where other organizations cannot surpass the brand and consequently, improve the brand effectiveness (Fuchs, & Diamantopoulos, 2010).

Price positioning is another recommendation given to the organization for brand effectiveness. The organization can come up with pricing strategies that make to organization prices relatively low and affordable compared to other brands. According to Gammoh, Koh, & Okoroafo (2011), the organization should ensure that it provides its customers with great prices and provide them with alternatives, which help to customers to buy only from the organization. The price positioning strategy can have numerous benefits to the organization and therefore the organization should seek to apply the strategy.

The organization can also use problem and solution positioning. The strategy involves the brand presenting a solution to consumer problems. The organization should find a significant problem that affects most health care consumers and provide them with a solution. The strategy demonstrates to customers that the organization can fix any problem that they face and consequently, the firm becomes a sanctuary for consumers (Singh, Kalafatis, & Ledden, 2014).

In conclusion, the branding of organizations is crucial to their success. It is crucial that an organization find ways to market itself. The brand audit conducted for a health care organization is CVS Health, which is a major American pharmaceuticals retailer. The organization has brand elements such as a logo and a slogan that make it stand out from the rest of the competition. It also has attributes such as good pricing systems and proper communication channels that ensure the organization stays relevant in the industry. However, the organization can use brand positioning and marketing strategies such as price positioning to improve brand effectiveness.

References

Fuchs, C., & Diamantopoulos, A. (2010). Evaluating the effectiveness of brand-positioning strategies from a consumer perspective. European Journal of Marketing, 44(11/12), 1763-1786.

Gammoh, B., Koh, A., & Okoroafo, S. (2011). Consumer culture brand positioning strategies: An experimental investigation. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 20(1), 48-57.

Hassan, S., & Craft, S. (2012). Examining world market segmentation and brand positioning strategies. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 29(5), 344-356.

Singh, J., P. Kalafatis, S., & Ledden, L. (2014). Consumer perceptions of cobrands: The role of brand positioning strategies. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 32(2), 145-159.

Williams, C. A. N., Khanfar, N. M., Harrington, C., & Loudon, D. (2011). Marketing retail health clinics: Challenges and controversies arising from a health care innovation. Health marketing quarterly, 28(3), 270-285.