How big companies think about brand

This morning’s New York Times offered a fascinating story about a leaked brand positioning report for Wal-Mart, written last fall by its former ad agency and leaked to the Times by a union group.

The story itself is a great read, but even more fascinating is a flip through the positioning report itself. Although this report was prepared by an agency fighting to retain the business they’ve held for more than 30 years (Wal-Mart eventually chose to take their agency-of-record business elsewhere), it’s worth a quick read to see not only how a company the size of Wal-Mart thinks about its current and future brand, but also the methodology it uses.

Lots of great learnings here for companies big and small.

I expect the blogosphere will ruminate much more on this report, with people like John Moore at BrandAutopsy leading the way.