BRBB8421 - Brand Communication and Strategic Planning Assignment

Assignment Task

You will identify either a place brand OR a services brand operating in South Africa and address the following:

1: Trend and Situation Analysis

Load shedding is killing business. South African brands won’t keep up with the fourth industrial revolution and will lose out on opportunities presented by global trends.” (Anon, 2023.)

You must source at least three credible reports forecasting the trends likely to impact brands (and your brand category in particular) in 2023 and beyond. In addition, you will source three articles on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and consider the way in which it is impacting your category.

You will integrate this information into an essay discussing the key opportunities and threats facing your brand, in context of the energy crisis in South Africa. For example, are there opportunities that will be negatively impacted? Are there threats that can be converted into opportunities? Are there trends that South African brands may ‘miss out’ on due to the energy crisis? Focus on the most important dimensions.

An essay/argument is carefully planned and ‘prototyped’ as a rough mind map before you start writing.

• You will submit the first iteration of this mind map as an ICE task. (Your navigator will advise you of the submission date.) The mind map will change as you read more and develop your argument and will be a ‘work in progress’ as you move through the stages of your assignment.
• The first iteration (ICE task version (Prototype A) AND the final iteration that provided the framework for your essay (Prototype B) must be submitted as Appendices A and B to your essay, in the form of photographs (jpegs) taken of the physical mind-maps you have drawn, or pdfs of digital mind-maps you have created.
• Prototypes must be clearly labelled

2: Ways of Thinking

Brand builders think about the energy crisis in different ways to find solutions and/or opportunities. You will write an essay in which you integrate the following:

a. Source at least three journal articles and write an integrated explanation of at least three ways of thinking and build an argument as to how they can be applied to the energy crisis in general.

b. In section 1 you considered your brand category. Progress this discussion by explaining how the energy crisis impacts your specific brand. You will use systemic thinking to develop this argument, which you will illustrate with a causal loop diagram, to be submitted as Appendix C.

c. You will then explain how you would use design thinking to develop an innovative solution for your brand that takes advantage of a global/industry trend or trends whilst facing the realities of the energy crisis (which is a wicked problem). Again, you will be thinking systemically, whilst explaining specifically how you would apply the design thinking process step-by-step. For example, exactly who would you involve in the ideation? How exactly would you test the first iteration of your prototype?

d. It will be critical to follow a human-centered approach. Discuss one specific model that could be used to gain the necessary empathy and insights needed to understand a challenge requiring an innovative solution. Give specific examples of the methods or tools you could use to elicit understanding and develop empathy

Document and Academic Writing

Submit well-written, logically structured, and grammatically correct essay/argument, supported by a wide range of correctly cited and referenced sources.

• Consult all prescribed readings and independently research other credible academic sources.
• The information sourced cannot simply be assembled or summarised: it must be analysed and integrated. Passively inserting quotes or information without actively engaging with the content is not sufficient to produce a scholarly argument.
• You may use additional information from websites, blogs, etcetera should you wish to do so, but ensure that these are reputable sources and correctly referenced.
• You must derive central insights from the study of multiple sources and integrate the ideas into a meaningful discussion.
• Based on solid and rigorous academic theory and frameworks, your arguments, statements, and conclusions must be fully substantiated.
• Pay attention to paraphrasing, integration, synthesis, and assimilation of the information you have sourced.
• Please ensure that you proofread your document and pay particular attention to grammar and syntax (sentence construction). South African English is to be used (American spelling constitutes spelling errors).
• Adhere strictly to The IIE Referencing Guide.

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