• by Wayne Friedman , April 20, 2007

No surprise here -- the Association of National Advertisers has found, that marketers' main goal continues to be building and maintaining brand equity.

In a new survey with market researcher Guideline Inc., 75% of marketers say their brand equity is the most important element to a company's success, and that the best way of building that equity -- for 76% of the survey's respondents -- is television.

In looking at a key subset of all brands -- younger skewing products -- the survey says Internet brand-building is the most important. In particular, for young and emerging or strong brands, Internet banner advertising, ranked third overall, 56%, as most effective.

What are the tell-tale signs of a brand gone wrong?

Seventy percent of the time, it results from the customer rate of return business waning; it goes to the competition. High on this critical list: when consumers knock down a brand from a rating of "excellent." Additionally, consumers don't think much of products that are sold through promotions, discounts or price reductions.

To combat this devaluation of brands, marketers suggest product innovation, exploring new target consumers, starting up new researching with focus groups and refocusing overall marketing.

The ANA/Guideline survey was conducted in February among 300 brand-marketing executives.