Psssss. A secret for you:
Big advertising agencies charge $20,000 to $80,000 to conduct "brand
assessments" for corporations. All they do is interview a sample from all of the clusters of people with whom your
company has contact: employees, sales reps, customers, prospects, former employees, competitors, executives, regulators,
accountants or lawyers. They synthesize the results and tell you what your brand image is in the real world.
Is Your Company Considered Stellar? Honorable?
Authoritative?
a Leader? Obsolete?
You perhaps thought the world thought your company had
integrity, when after such an assessment, you may discover the world thinks your company is cheap!
But such an
evaluation can be done on a smaller scale with similar accuracy. It does let you see where your company's performance
falls short on perceptions. It also helps you clarify your company mission and values so you can identify what your
five big brand attributes are and which attributes (while admirable) do NOT belong to your company.
No More Identity Crisis
This simple exercise is extremely valuable because for years and
years you can rely on these brand attributes, and even measure how much progress you've made in expressing them
through employee behavior, pricing and policies, customer satisfaction or product quality.