25 Things Marketers Should Know About Brands

Do you think you really understand brands? Can you explain what a brand is to people who want to know? Can you explain what brand equity is? Can you describe how to measure brand equity? Do you consider yourself a brand management expert? Do you know what brand elements are the most important to manage? Can you articulate your brand's strengths and weaknesses? 

Here is a list of the 25 things marketers should know about brands:

1. Brands are the personifications of organizations and their products and services. 
2. Brands should stand for something.
3. Brands should have unique value propositions.
4. Brand should promise relevant differentiated benefits or shared values.
5. Brands should focus on emotional, experiential or self-expressive benefits more than functional benefits.
6. Brands need to consistently deliver on their promises.
7. You should have determined your brand's archetype, that is, what motivates your brand.
8. Brands should have carefully crafted personalities. 
9. Brands should tell emotionally compelling stories.
10. Brands should have unique identity systems including names, tag lines  icons, type fonts, colors, patterns, tastes, scents, sounds, textures and voices.
11. The best brand names imply a powerful customer benefit.
12. The best names are short, easy to pronounce, easy to spell, easy to remember and significantly different from the names of other brands in the same categories.
13. Every brand should have its elevator speech.
14. Brands can dance between consistency (to build recognition and recall) and sponteneity (to surprise and delight).
15. Brands need to be trustworthy.
16. Ideally, brands are innovative.
17. Brands perform the best if they are supported by quality products backed by exceptional service.
18. People appreciate responsive brands.
19. Aesthetically pleasing brands usually command price premiums.
20. Brands can extend businesses beyond limited product categories. 
21. Brands need to be actively managed.
22. To be actively managed, brands require their own metrics.
23. Typical brand metrics include unaided awareness, attitudinal loyalty, distribution, market share/share of requirements, reduced price sensitivity and customer advocacy.
24. It is acceptable to refresh brands every few years as long as their core associations are not obscured in the process.
25. Proactive publicity is a great way to grow brands.