156756 Digital Marketing Assessment 3 Brief 2026 | Massey University NZ

156756 Digital Marketing Assessment 3 Brief 

Assessment Overview

Due date:  Monday 11 May 2026 at 11:55am NZ Standard Time.

Weighting: 20% of the course mark

Word count: 2000 words (approximate)

Individual or group: This is an individual assessment.

Format: Written report

Target market: New Zealand OR China (not both)

Assessment Details

Task And Scenario: 

Your role in this assessment is to write a report as if you are the ‘digital marketing consultant’ to the business client we are advising this semester (Three Sisters Brewery).

In this course, you will be doing separate tasks and assignments, but the subject and the client is the same, so there will be lots of cross-over in terms of your research and thinking. Before you start working on the assignments, be sure to read the assignment descriptions, so you are clear on what is being specifically asked for you on each one.

When writing the assignment, you need to remember that your business report could potentially be used by the client, so your report needs to be specific and detailed to the client.

The client has asked you to use your theoretical and practical knowledge and understanding to develop a fresh perspective on their digital marketing that then logically flows through to an actionable set of recommendations.

They have specifically asked for the development of a Buyer Persona for the business (Part 1), and an evaluation of three of their competitors’ websites and social media (Part 2 – approximately 400 words per competitor). This competitor evaluation will form part of the basis for the recommendations that you will make in your final report for the group assessment.

Why A Competitor Analysis?   

One of the most important things we do in marketing is to refine who we are marketing to. As we are not working with an unlimited budget, we need to ensure that our marketing budget is directed in the right place.

Digital marketing is not a set of tactics that sits independently outside of the rest of the brand’s marketing. It should support the overall marketing strategy. This overall marketing strategy consists of decisions about segmentation (defining the market segments that you think are the most important for the brand and developing buyer personas), targeting (deciding which of these consumers segments you think is most beneficial to target in order to lead to growth), and positioning (the identity that the brand has in the mind of its consumers and how it is distinct from other products within that product category).

Smart digital marketing supports this overall marketing strategy by not only thinking about where and how we can put ads but what is the right place for these ads according to how consumers behave and encounter the idea of the product. For example, to raise awareness of a new low sugar ice cream, we could spend $500,000 on Facebook and display ads and those ads could reach many people who are not really interested in buying low sugar products. Alternatively, we could think carefully about the kinds of places that someone goes to in order to encounter the ice cream and spend $10,000 running a targeted campaign that finds the people that might be most likely to convert.

So if we take our sugar free ice cream example, we could think about the situations that might get you to consider purchasing a sugar free ice cream product – even if it is more expensive than normal ice cream in that product category. Perhaps some one discovers they are diabetic and they can’t have much sugar, or they are into fitness and trying a new diet that is sugar free like the popular ketogenic diet.  The marketer would then identify places that the consumer might go while they are finding out about this – perhaps gym communities, or support forums, or cooking influencers who use keto. The marketer can then partner with these forums by supplying products for recipes, and purchase search terms that find people on their journey like “sugar free dessert”, “low calorie dessert”.  Ideally the people that they partner or advertise with would be a “good fit” with the brand. For example, if my brand was targeted at a female audience who liked premium products, and spent an average of $250 per week on themselves shopping per week for food, the marketer might not choose a site for busy mums on a budget. The marketer would look to find influencers and websites that “fit” the brand and exemplify its vlues. They would then choose the channels based on this segmentation that they use for their owned channels. So if the majority of their audience is not on TikTok, the marketer would decide this is not the right channel. This is smart marketing that supports the overall objectives and positioning of the brand, and is more likely to find people to convert.  This is the kind of customer journey mapping that you will complete for Assessment 3 in your group work. Smart marketing is not necessarily mass marketing everywhere, it is selective.

This assessment asks you to do a competitor analysis, which is one of the first steps you would do in creating a plan and is the process that sits in between the creating the buyer personas and deciding on your targeting.  You cannot position your brand without knowing who else is in the market!

While a small proportion of consumers might be loyal to just one brand, there is a much larger cohort of consumers who have several brands that they like. Shopping online means that it is important to know who your consumers might be comparing your brand to. That way we can identify weaknesses and strengths in their marketing, and devise a strategy that caters to this.

It also allows us to look at who they see the consumer as, and what kind of marketing they think appeals to the consumer. We may be able to look at their advertising and see what works well for them – what language they use, what tone, what colours, what website structure, what kind of posts and imagery. On their social media we are then able to identify what posts they are using and see which posts perform the best.

For this assessment, your client has asked you to use your theoretical and practical knowledge to develop a fresh understanding of their competitors and their digital marketing. They have specifically asked for:

Part 1: The development of a buyer persona for their business

Part 2: Information on three competitors (see below for the details you need to answer).

Key Requirements Of The Report

For this assessment, you can either choose New Zealand or China as the target market (note you must choose one, not both countries).  Within the country you have chosen, you are looking at the  business to consumer market (for consumers ordering beers).

The report must include the following three sections:

1. Summary of the brief from Three Sisters Brewery (approx. 300 words). A paragraph that summarises:
   a. the core promise of the brand (the solutions and expectations it communicates to customers)
   b. the brand positioning (how it is positioned in the market as unique from other brands in the category)
   c. the target audience (who you believe the core target audience is for Three Sisters Brewery)
   d. what the objective is for digital growth
   e. the competitors you have chosen based on the above details and why you have chosen them (note if you are in China these may be Chinese competitors that appeal to the same target audience)

2. A buyer persona for Three Sisters Brewery (approx. 300 words): Create one detailed buyer persona of typical customers of your client. Use all the detail provided by the client and, if necessary, make additional assumptions (but be clear when you are making assumptions and to provide the reason behind each assumption). As you will see, there are many potential customers for this website. It is recommended that you clearly define one buyer personas with clear details for them. The personas should be distinct insofar that they are focussed on one part of the client’s business. Once the buyer persona is developed, you will use them as the basis for your decisions and recommendations for Part 2 of this assignment (i.e. choose competitors that align with the buyer persona you have chosen) and you can compare with your group to incorporate these into Assessment 2, your final group project.
3. Competitor summary x 3 (approx. 400 words per competitor).

   For each competitor, complete the following:
   a. Brand name
   b. Website
   c. Number of followers on each social channel
   d. Short description of why you believe this is a competitor for Three Sisters Brewery
   e. Short description of website including tone of brand, what you believe their target audience is, positioning, functionality
   f. Short description of how they post on their social media accounts, including tone of brand, use of imagery, themes (include examples of posts – take screenshots)
   g. A short summary of the strengths and weaknesses of their marketing approach.

4. Conclusion (approx. 200 words)
   a. A short conclusion that summarises the overall strengths and weaknesses of the competitors’ approach, and any potential areas of weakness/ opportunity that Three Sisters Brewery might be able to capitalise on. (You can extend on these opportunities further in your final group assessment).

Word Limit

• Aim for 2,000 words maximum.
• This assessment is about the quality of your work, not the quantity.
• If you find the report nearing 2000 words, then start considering creating appendix pages.

The material in the appendices will not count towards the overall word count for the report. However, all items placed in the appendices MUST be referenced within the main sections of the report. So, if you have a screenshot in the appendices, then somewhere within the report, that image must be mentioned, and there must be a direction to this (for example, “see Figure 4 in Appendix 2”).

• In terms of word count, you must always consider the reader of the report. The reader is the client, and they will be extremely busy and critical if they feel you are wasting their time reading something that is not precise and to the point. They do not want to know about theory, instead, they want to know that you know the theory and practice (hence the need to reference) and tell them clearly what they need to do and why.

Format Details

The report must contain:

• Summary of the brief
• Buyer persona
• An analysis of three competitors (deal with one competitor at a time, do not discuss them all at once together until the final summary of your report).
• Conclusion
• References
• Appendix (optional but probably needed)

Other Requirements Are

• Justify, explain and evidence your observations. The reader needs to understand the “so what?”, “says who” and “why” for your explanations. You can find evidence from your textbook, reports online, news articles, lectures. For who this brand is targeting, you can find evidence from their website or social media channels. This includes things such as tone of voice, the influencers or actors they use in their images, and website copy.
• Good level of written English.

Assessment Breakdown