ABSTRACT
When building a brand plan for a new product, the fi rst question that has to be addressed is: ‘Where are we now?’ Examining the external and internal situation enables this understanding. The process of studying the external situation in this book is referred to as the external analysis. An external analysis should cover the macro-environment (the different existing environmental forces) and the micro-environment (the segments, customers and competitors). In this chapter I recommend a number of analytical processes that I have found extremely useful to structure my thinking about the external environment. These analytical processes are described in more detail in the sections entitled ‘What are the key ingredients of the external analysis?’ and ‘How to approach the external analysis’.
