Wise marketers understand that a brand’s success depends upon sharing consumers’ values. So it’s obviously essential to keep close watch on those values.

Brands that fail to do this risk waking up one morning to find that two things have shrunk while they slept: (1) Their share of market (total of customers) and (2) their share of customer (in terms of repeat purchase and loyalty). This is usually linked with a decline in profits and in shareholder value.

In other words, their brand equity is heading south.

For a brand to stay informed about the people who buy what they are selling, they must always be aware of (a) the direction and speed of customer value shifts, and (b) the direction and speed of their brand’s own value proposition. It is astonishing how many companies don’t know where their own brand equity lies.