I recently sent a note to the President of one of my favorite advertising agencies. I congratulated him for his fabulous white paper expounding the positioning and branding services offered by his team.

It was clear, interesting, compelling and hopefully all of his clients and prospects will take the time to read it.

Even the agency’s process for helping clients with identifying their positioning strengths deserves commendation.

Many clients do not understand the fine line between positioning and the brand. Understanding this will save many from unsuccessful marketing programs.

But I did ask him these questions.

The white paper talks about the aim of branding. It says that the branding goal is to build awareness of the client's product

allowing consumers to differentiate the client's products from the other options out there. Did he think that branding and awareness building were actually strategies for improving the client's bottom line? In other words, isn't the aim for all of this deep thinking to find a way to help the client make more money now and over the long term?

If that is so, how are branders evaluating the strategy as it applies to the goal? How do they quantify the financial contributions of positioning and subsequent branding activity?

The direct marketing, sales promotion, public relations and general advertising strategies are converging with the impact of multi-channel marketing. And great brands definitely improve the response rates of direct response programs. But how do we go about assigning credit for these various activities?

I would like to ask you, the readers of this blog, to give me your answers to the same questions. I will then compose an article for a national magazine within our industry and quote your name if the idea originates from you (with your permission, of course).