A Data Set of Brands and Their Characteristics

Brands stand at the core of marketing. They are central to positioning, marketing communications, word of mouth, customer relationships, and firm profits. Brands have been studied from multiple perspectives using a variety of measures and scales. We offer a data set that contains 136 different measures of the brand characteristics for almost 700 of the top U.S. national brands across 16 categories measured by 2010. These measures cover a broad range of characteristics including brand personality, satisfaction, age, attributes related to Rogers' innovation scheme such as complexity, and the four brand equity pillars of Young and Rubicam's BrandAsset Valuator. The data were collected from a combination of sources including an original survey on 4,769 subjects. In addition, we provide quarterly data on the variables available from the BrandAsset Valuator for two and a half years between 2008 and 2010. These data can be used as a building block in research that aims to explore the antecedents of brand perceptions or connect brand characteristics with market and financial outcomes. This paper describes the data and some relevant research questions.