Hey, it's Al Bergeron, Chief Creative Officer of bergeroncreative.com, and this is The Brand Whisperer Briefing, where I provide practical brand strategies that will grow your corporate or personal brands. Giving you greater influence in today's technology driven society.

On this week's episode I'm going to discuss brand equity. Brand equity is defined as both positive and negative associations by the consumer to the brand's name, brandmark, tagline and other attributes. Therefore, brand equity describes a brand's value. This value is shaped by consumer experiences and perception of a brand. If people think highly of a brand, it has positive brand equity. When a brand consistently under-preforms to the point where consumers won't recommend it, it has negative brand equity.

Brand equity is developed as a result of a consumer's experiences with the brand, which shape their perceptions. An example of positive brand equity is Apple, which one of the world's most popular brands. The company built its positive reputation with Mac computers before extending the brand to iPhones.

An example of is negative brand equity is Goldman Sachs, who lost brand value when the public perception soured as its role in the 2008 financial crisis was exposed. Just one negative incident can eliminate years of positive brand equity.

So, your homework for this week is to answer these questions: What are the positive attributes associated with my brand? What if any are the negative attributes associated with my brand?

That's it for this week. Have a great week! On the next episode of The Brand Whisperer I will discuss brand identity.