There are some retail brands that just seem to have the wind at their backs. Good financial performance is sustained, they get talked about and held up as an example in and around the industry and they have fans/customers that keep coming back for more. Is it luck? Partially, maybe. They say it’s better to be lucky than good. If you are responsible for a retail brand that isn’t in this situation, though, you might want to be a bit more proactive rather than wait for the perfect storm to brew.

The question then becomes: How do I become proactive? How do I evaluate my brand and prioritize actions and initiatives that will help me to get some of that wind at my back? While there is no single magic bullet for getting this done, there is a framework for approaching the question that can help ensure that you are paying attention to those things that will drive the long-term success of your brand.

Over the past few decades, Interbrand has had the pleasure of working with thousands of brands, many of them retailers. We have also observed others we haven’t worked with. Through consideration of the actions and positions of this large set of brands over time, we have identified ten components of what we refer to as Brand Strength. By evaluating your brand on these Brand Strength components and prioritizing action based on this evaluation, you can give your brand the best chance of gaining or maintaining momentum.

Four of these ten components are internal in nature. Collectively, they evaluate the way in which the brand is handled by internal constituents: Clarity of what the brand stands for, Commitment to supporting the brand, Protection provided for the brand from multiple perspectives and Responsiveness in terms of the ability of the brand to adapt to changing conditions. A quick example of a high-achieving brand on Responsiveness would be Amazon.com. Not complacent as a simple online book distributor, Amazon.com is continually finding ways to reinvent itself. It shows no fear in developing new ways to serve its customers.

The remaining six components of Brand Strength are external. These evaluate the perceptions of a brand according to those the brand is trying to reach. External components include Authenticity of heritage and values, Relevance to customer needs, Differentiation from competition, Consistency of experience across touchpoints, Presence of the brand in the market and the level of Understanding of a brand’s qualities and characteristics. A benchmark example of Relevance is American Girl. With the presence of technology focused toys and social media, young girls are “aging out” of dolls at a much earlier age, making it difficult for any brand in this category to remain Relevant. American Girl responded to the changing demands of its customer base, by making the brand more interactive and technology based, which addresses the trend of girls trading dolls for computers and social media, by integrating the two. They have continued to think of new ways for girls to maintain the relationship with their dolls for a longer period of time, through activities online, to updating accessories, to the variety of services offered at the American Girl stores.

Again, while there is no single to-do that will launch your brand into the stratosphere, an honest evaluation of your brand on these components and comparison to your competition will help you identify and prioritize actions to ensure that your brand is covering off on what it must do to be in the best position for long-term success.

The Store of the Future is there when my wife suggests one fine day (in a sweet and casual tone) that we should “update the floor tile in the bathroom.” It is there as I begin to visualize how the new bathroom will look. It is there when I have to pick out paint, fixtures, cabinets, countertops, shower doors and oh yeah, tile. More importantly, it is there long before I have to decide where to shop for these products for my now full-scale bathroom renovation.

The Store of the Future is a convergence of technology and possibility that materializes exactly when you need it.

Today we live in a world of consumer co-creation. Retailers can’t wait till the shopper hits the store to see what’s available. It is now all about being there at the moment the consumer realizes a need, and shepherding them along an adaptive path to the store, all while keeping the wolves from luring the them off into the forest of competing brands. Today, more than ever, retailers need to find creative ways to keep shoppers—even their brand loyalists—engaged all the way through the transactional process. That is the power and the risk of digital touchpoints in retailing.

If retailers are willing and able, they can invest in effective digitally-based methods for reaching further into the shopper’s path to purchase, closer to that decision point of “should I or shouldn’t I?” and influence the decision to buy. Keep in mind, however, that it’s the brand strategy behind the digital touchpoints that will drive more transactional traffic—not the digital tools themselves.

Digital business continues to grow as clients seek expertise in creating an ideal shopper journey online as well as offline

Forty-two. This answer to the question of life, the universe and everything from Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a classic illustration of the disappointing results that arise when a project is not sufficiently defined.

Business questions are the key to defining business problems so that they can be understood and solved in ways that are actionable and beneficial. An example business question is, “Which of these store designs will most increase store visits by current customers?” When well drafted, they deliver guidance to successful strategy, design, research, analytics and operations problem solving. Business questions do these things by aligning resources to needs, making sure everyone has similar understanding of what is to be accomplished, and ensuring that the work to be done will solve the problem at hand. It is easy, however, to run into problems while developing these questions.

Common problems in business question development are:

• Not creating or communicating the business questions.

• Using absolutes as goals for the solution.

• Failing to prioritize success criteria.

• Being ambiguous.

Interbrand Design Forum redesigns all 400,000 square feet of the space to create a state-of-the art destination store