Site typically begins by gathering key stakeholder input - interviews with key stakeholders and a review of existing business or marketing plans in order to develop the underpinnings for the brand, its offering, and its customers are determined. These are the brand attributes - the "rungs" of the company's "DNA".

The Company's -
• Core purpose - the reason the company exists beyond making money
• Core values - an enduring set of principles that reflect the brand's ethics
• Core ideology - a combination of core values and core purpose
• Core identity - the central, sustainable elements of the brand

The Brand's -
• Personality- a description of the brand in human terms
• Promise - a stated or implied pledge that creates customer expectations and employee responsibilities
• Essence - The brand promise distilled into the simplest terms
• Drive features - the attributes of the brand that are both important to customers and highly differentiated from the competition
• Emergent attributes - a feature, benefit, quality or experience that arises from the brand as opposed to a core product or service, eg: the "friendliness" of Google