Brand Management & Marketing Competency Assessment

Over the past decade, I have helped hundreds of organizations refine their brand management and marketing efforts. In so doing, I have gotten pretty good at making a fairly quick assessment of an organization’s or individual’s marketing capabilities. Here are some of the signs that the organization or individual knows what it/he/she is doing regarding brand management and marketing:

• An insightful and nuanced (and often elaborate) description of the target customer groups and segments
• Backed up by qualitative and quantitative marketing research
• Including brand positioning maps for the brand in question and its competitors
• Knows the difference between attributes, benefits and values
• The brand strategy is based on benefits and values (especially emotional benefits and values)
• The brand’s promise is unique, compelling and believable (with an emphasis on compelling)
• The brand’s tagline reinforces the brand’s promise
• Familiarity with self-expressive brand benefits
• Understands the importance of category description and competitive “frame of reference”
• Familiar with the concept of “category of one” brands
• Understands (and has used) the following qualitative research techniques: projective, laddering and guided imagery
• The brand’s media plan is highly targeted and efficient based on the target customer definition
• Is familiar with the concept of customer touch point design
• The CEO is involved in the brand strategy process
• Good understanding of customer purchase and usage behaviors
• Customer-centric, common sense approach to all marketing decisions

Test yourself and your organization against the previous bulleted items. How well do you stack up?