The most important elements of a brand should be:

Brand Position

• Who is addressed by company’s branded products or services. What the company does and for whom
• The company’s unique value and how customers benefit from products and/or services
• Key competitive differentiators, what makes the brand be chosen, be different from its competitors

Brand Promise

• The ONE most important thing that the brand promises to deliver to its customers — Every time!
• What customers and partners should expect from every interaction, how should they feel as brand’s customers

Brand Personality

• What the brand is to be known for
• Personality traits that customers, partners, and employees use to describe the company. What comes to the (potential) customer’s mind when addressed about the brand

Brand Story

• The company’s history and how the history adds value and credibility to the brand
• A summary of products/services/solutions

Brand Associations

• Physical artifacts: name, logo, colors, taglines, fonts, imagery
• Ideally, it must reflect the all the above statements about the brand and the company

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EquiTrend has been designed to be a concise and efficient way of obtaining quality, well-rounded information about the critical elements of a brand’s health. Its seven key measures help determine a brand’s stance amongst competitors, within other categories, and in comparison to world-class brands. The study measures brand health using the following seven key measures:

1. Equity
2. Familiarity
3. Quality
4. Purchase Consideration
5. Overall Relevance
6. Brand Expectations
7. Distinctiveness

The final top 10 looks a little odd for me as none of the brand-icons made it in the first ten, actually I would rather name it Top 10 Grocery/Convenience Store Brands. Or as AdAge put it:

Reynolds also topped such icons as Coke, Pepsi and McDonald’s. It blew away the ubiquitous Nike. It outclassed Mercedes and Lexus. It left the hip iPod in the dust.

But well here is their top 10:

1. Reynolds Wrap Aluminum Foil
2. Ziploc Food Bags
3. Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Candy Bars
4. Kleenex Facial Tissues
5. Clorox Bleach
6. WD-40 Spray Lubricant
7. Heinz Ketchup
8. Ziploc Containers
9. Windex Glass Cleaner
10. Campbell’s Soups

The official Harris Interactive announcement here.

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