The brand is Starbucks. Business & Marketing Coursework

 The brand is Starbucks. 

Task: 
Choose a brand to evaluate.
Referencing the content, videos and tools explored over the past 7 weeks, gather evidence to determine a brand’s digital health.  Your goal is to persuade your professor of your perspective using evidence you collect. 
If it helps, think of yourself as a digital marketing consultant speaking to a client or internally within an organization.Do not reference a source that evaluates your brand.  In other words, we don’t want to know what others think of the brand, but rather what YOU think about the brand.

Question:
What is the state of the brand’s digital health?  
Healthy – meets best practices, it’s engaging, and cohesive with other media
Unhealthy – does not meet best practices, it’s unengaging, and incohesive with other media

4 Steps Response Must Include:
Step 1: Choose a brand (no one else in the class can have the same brand)
Step 2: Prepare a persona - this will be the lens from which you evaluate the brand
Step 3: Choose 1: Website presence or Social media presence
Step 4: Recommendation: What can the brand improve upon? Provide 3 recommendations.

Marks:
Persona bio: 3 marks
Website or Social Media evaluation: 25 marks
Recommendation: 6 marks 

Total: 34 marks

Response Type:

Written submission
Word document including screen grabs of any of your findings
Feel free to weave in your images with your text
Paragraph or point form (be sure to communicate the full thought)
Length is up to you, please make sure everything is captured fully

Considerations for Your ResponsePlease evaluate the Canadian experience only
Brand:
Provide a short overview of the brand/service – what is it, where offered, are they the market leaders, or whatever you feel is critical about the brand.

Persona:
Create a customer persona so that you can use that as your evaluation lens
Provide a short “bio” (e.g., 5-8 sentences) at the beginning of your submission, but attach the persona as an appendix.
Be sure that the bio captures WHO the customer is – values, opinions, beliefs, motivations, what makes them tick?

Online Presence:
Consider the following in your response:
Provide a link to the website
Domains, social media handles – cohesiveness, ownership
Best practices regarding creative and responsive design, usability, features/functionality
SEO – rank, popularity, meta descriptions, best practices, organic/paid search
Compare and contrast to leading competitor

Social Media Presence:
Consider the following in your response
Provide links to the social media accounts
What are the Canadian Social Media handles (account names)
What social media accounts are used, why, how?
Content Calendar – create a content calendar, to learn about frequency, content pillars (themes)Compare and contrast to leading competitor
Recommendation:Regardless if the brand’s online presence is healthy or unhealthy, what three actions would you recommend that the brand do or focus on to improve?Why are they important?How will the improvements impact their customers?
Marks:Persona bio: 3 marksWebsite or Social Media evaluation: 25 marksRecommendation: 6 marksTotal: 34 marks






Rubric
Criteria Marks Awarded Bio 0 marks 0 marks 0 to 1 marks 1 to 2 marks 2 to 3 marks Not provided Not provided. “Who are we talkin’    about?”
Bio does not clearly describe the target audience and is unlikely to support the following evaluation. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same customer.” 
Bio does a reasonable job to convey the target audience, but is missing some of the nuances that drive the customer’s behaviour. “I can see our customer in my mind.”
Bio paints a vivid mental image of the customer including their values, beliefs, motivations and what makes them tick. Evaluation 0 to 12.5 marks 12.5 to 16.25 marks 16.25 to 20 marks 20 to 22.5 marks 22.5 to 25 marks “Are you sure you work in digital marketing?”
Evaluation was not provided or, provides minimal insight to the brand’s online performance.



“Darn we’ve run out of time. Let’s stop there for today. We’ll read the recommendation ourselves.”
The evaluation was provided.  It requires significant thinking and evidence to be persuasive and to set up for the recommendations. 
“We’ve been told otherwise. How comprehensive was your evaluation?”
The evaluation appears to hit on a few key points, but overall it does not tell a cohesive story. As such, the foundation for the recommendations is weak. “Thanks for opening our eyes to what’s happening. What else can you tell us?”
The evaluation is persuasive but requires a little more convincing before your recommendations are considered. “Two words. Mind blown.”
The evaluation is highly persuasive and presents a strong case to inspire the recommendations that follow. Recommendations 0 to 0 marks 1 to 3 marks 3 to 4 marks 4 to 5 marks 5 to 6 marks “Did you do this last night?  Where are the recos?.”
Recommendations were not provided. “We’ll get back to you in a few weeks.”
1 to 3 recommendations provided, but without the rationale and impact to customers are either missing or require significant refinement. “We’ll get back to you tomorrow.”
1 to 2 recommendations provided clear and concise recommendations provided including rationale for the selection and how it will impact customers. “Can you give us a minute to chat?”
3 recommendations provided including rationale for the selection and how it will impact customers.  Some refinement and focus are required to ensure that the recommendations are clear and concise. “Let’s get started right away!”
3 clear and concise recommendations provided including rationale for the selection and how it will impact customers.