Simple brand analysis is best

Three Telltale Signs of an Agency's Ineptitude: Branding Strategy Insider:

"The final clue that your potential agency is, perhaps, not your optimum partner for the future is the way in which they discuss brands. It may only be semantics, but there is a very high correlation between the number of different concepts a marketer uses to describe brands and their actual knowledge of the topic. There are only three key concepts in branding: brand positioning (what you want the brand to be); brand equity (the current value of the brand, measured in whatever manner you see fit), and brand architecture (to describe the relationships that exist between one brand and another). Any good agency will restrict themselves to variations on these three terms. A bad agency will throw a veritable dictionary at you. You'll get brand personality, brand values, brand essence, brand disintegration, brand casting - and so on and so on."

Great post I recommend you read the lot.