One of my favourite professors at Melbourne Business School was Mark Ritson with whom I took the Brand Management course. One of the reasons I liked him so much was because of the wealth of real-world knowledge that he brought to the class. In fact, that was one of the reasons quoted when he was voted our (i.e. the full-time MBA students') favourite teacher at this year's MBS Valedictory Dinner.

One of those bits of real-world knowledge was his advice on how to pick the right marketing or branding agency for your company. Actually, it was more about which agency not to pick. Should an agency talk to you or show you a PowerPoint slide about any of these three things, he said, they will have instantly demonstrated the ineptitude:

1. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
2. A SWOT Analysis
3. Brand concepts other than brand positioning, brand equity, and brand architecture

I was actually going to write about these three things in more detail some time over the next couple of months but, fortunately, Ritson has written about them himself in a post called 'Three Telltale Signs of an Agency's Ineptitude' on The Branding Blog. It's a great read that I highly recommend you check out.