Last month’s North American brand ranking by research firm Millward Brown included at least one surprise in their latest Top 10 list. We’ll get to that in a minute, after first mentioning that the powersports aftermarket has of a sudden become fascinated with branding, its potential value, and how best to leverage the intangible.

Press releases and editorial roundups are ripe these days with pregnant references to “growing building expanding” the brand, without, it seems, much thought as to the desired goals or the means of achievement.

Brand identity is loosely defined as the ephimeral value of a mark to its customers – and that’s often, but not always, a function of advertising as the driving element. But successful branding can, and does, have other parents, most notably design.

And most ironically, the benefits of brand id don’t always carry over. Witness the significant trouble Hershey Chocolate, easily one of the most iconic of brands, is having with their bottom line as a result of Mars eating their lunch, so to speak. We identify with Hershey kisses, we buy Mars Almond Joy bars.

I prefer positioning, the slightly out of favor activity that ids product with place in market. Kodak rules Fuji as a brand, loses big as an image maker. Hence, they let Fuji hijack their very significant position within the market.

Still wondering what the country’s top consumer brand is? Get ready – it’s Google, in a list that includes Coke and Marlboro, Apple and MacDonalds, WalMart and Microsoft. Here’s the kicker – Google doesn’t do consumer advertising, making their ranking that much more remarkable – all hail search engine dependency. (Rival list maker InterBrand lists Coke as first, but they use different metrics.)

Lesson for powersports? Probably this: If your audience hasn’t a clue about what (positioning) you do, chances are how they feel about you (branding) doing it won’t matter.