Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant - always yours

194 BRAND RELEVANCE
Figure 6.3 Prioritizing Information Need Areas
Low
Immediacy
High
Impact
High
Low
Monitor and analyze;
contingent
strategies considered
Monitor
Analyze in-depth;
develop strategy
Monitor and
analyze
level of monitoring may suffi ce. If the impact is thought to be
low but the immediacy is high, the area may merit a higher level
of monitoring and analysis.
If the immediacy is low and the impact high, then the area
may require monitoring and analysis in more depth, and contingent
strategies may be considered but not necessarily developed
and implemented. Events that are thought to be rare but can
have a huge impact are often underestimated. Financial crises
through history have happened because an event thought to be
rare actually occurred. The identifi cation of signals of an uptick
in immediacy or a trend surging can help avoid being surprised.
If the probablility is seen to increase, contingent strategies can
then be put in place.
The goal of an approach to identify and prioritize information
need areas should not be to build a library of facts. The
process should be designed to avoid descriptive, ill - focused, and
ineffi cient efforts. The focus should instead be on understanding
market dynamics that have the potential to be creating new
categories or subcategories. In that spirit, the process should be
linked to current offerings, strategies, and potential opportunities
and threats that surround them.