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A brand is a perception someone has of a particular person, place, thing or idea.

No perception, no brand. Branding creates your desired perception, and The Backstory Brand Wheel™ Framework guides that process. The Backstory Brand Wheel™ Assessment is an integrated brand assessment that identifies any gaps between your current and desired brand perceptions so you can build an effective brand strategy to close those gaps.

The Backstory Brand Wheel™ Assessment provides a practical methodology for building a brand that can scale with your business. It’s a practical and actionable approach to branding that aligns and inspires your internal team and partners' daily branding activities and decisions to create your desired perception. We recommend doing your brand assessment as a team to determine the degree to which you have a shared understanding of these elements.

The process starts with a thoughtful evaluation of the foundational elements of your brand, including your brand purpose, brand position, brand promise, brand pillars, and brand personality. From there, you review the degree to which you have defined your ideal customers and personas and the marketing messages that resonate with them, your brand narrative, including your elevator pitch, about us statement and company overview, followed by brand architecture, naming, and verbal, visual and experiential brand guidelines. Having defined these brand expressions, you move to brand activation, where the focus is on taking your brand story to market in a clear, concise, and consistent way across customer touchpoints. Thinking through your brand in this progression makes activating your go-to-market strategy much easier because you’ve identified your audiences and defined what to say to them. 

The process of comparing and contrasting internal and external brand perceptions requires insights from internal self-reflection about your brand and how you think it’s perceived and want it to be perceived, along with market research from the perspective of your current and potential customers and industry trends. You’ve also got to consider your performance marketing, including recent posts and social media campaigns and activity, along with other brand elements such as your brand awareness and brand equity.

Thoughtfully completing these steps results in an informed brand strategy that guides your current brand management strategies, marketing efforts, and customer experiences and creates a lens through which you can meaningfully interpret your competitive analysis to identify opportunities for differentiation. Remember to engage key stakeholders from different disciplines across your organization—product, sales, operations, and client success—to encourage diversity of thought and buy-in and generate actionable insights to improve your brand health and maximize your brand value.

Be sure to update the color status of each element within your Backstory Brand Wheel™ Assessment as you progress from red to orange to green. This will celebrate your team’s progress and motivate them to keep going, sustaining the focused commitment required to build a strong brand.

To complete your branding assessment, simply answer the questions outlined in our brand assessment form above.

Completing your brand assessment provides valuable insights into your brand's perception and capacity to scale. It helps you evaluate your brand positioning, brand and audience messaging and visual brand identity–inputs that feed into your ability to make your brand stand out from competitors. It also helps you improve the performance of your marketing efforts, including your social media and content marketing and brand awareness among target customers.

Building and executing a strong brand strategy increases customer loyalty and satisfaction, informs ongoing brand messaging and brand image improvements, fostering stronger connections with your customers and consumers. Completing a brand assessment is vital for creating and sustaining a successful brand that resonates with all its audiences all the time.

A brand audit is a subset of a brand assessment. Both exercises are important but different in scope and purpose. A brand audit is a 360-degree review of your current brand communications regarding what you are communicating and how consistently you’re communicating it. While both processes offer valuable insights and recommendations, a brand assessment is broader in scope than a brand audit; a brand assessment puts your brand communications in the context of the competitive landscape and other branding elements. Different aspects of your brand assessment may vary in focus and depth based on your specific needs.

A brand evaluation measures customers’ brand awareness and preference for your brand and its attributes in comparison to your competitors over time. First, you establish a baseline for key brand perception metrics; then, you measure these brand performance metrics over time with your target audience to see what effect your ongoing brand marketing activities have on them. 

A thorough brand evaluation also includes assessing the impact your social media and marketing materials are having on your brand perception and recognition. When done well, a strategic brand evaluation can help companies identify strengths and weaknesses, create opportunities for brand improvement, and make informed decisions to reinforce their brand power and overall effectiveness.

A complete brand assessment shows you the degree to which you have clearly defined and aligned your brand strategy, brand positioning, brand messaging, and visual brand identity and how consistently you communicate these brand elements across all your customer touchpoints. Conducting regular brand assessments can show you how your brand is improving over time. Including personal branding elements in your assessments can provide valuable insights into opportunities for enhancing your overall brand image and brand marketing effectiveness.

A successful brand audit reviews your current brand communications and how consistent they are across customer touchpoints in support of your efforts to improve your brand building. Including customer feedback in your brand audit can help you identify areas for improvement. A comprehensive brand audit provides valuable insights into opportunities for improving your future brand communications.

To audit your brand, start by gathering examples of all your current visual and verbal brand communications. Review your branding materials, online presence, and customer feedback to identify areas for improvement and ensure consistency across all touchpoints. Be sure to evaluate your personal brand communications and how they align with and support your desired brand perception. The goal is to build and activate consistent brand communications that reflect your unique value proposition and distinguish you from competitors. You may also want to consider conducting a brand valuation to understand the financial worth of your brand.  By systematically analyzing these branding elements through a consistent brand assessment program, you can gain valuable insights into your brand's strengths and weaknesses and guide strategic decisions to enhance the impact and value of your brand.

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