The Keller model - does anyone use models anymore...?

Keller´s pyramid is a classic in marketing, and a simple way to present your ideas to the client. It answers four questions:

Who are you? First level is brand salience. In building a highly salient brand it is important that awareness campaigns not only build depth (ensuring that a brand will be remembered and the ease with which it is) but also breadth (the range of situations in which the brand comes to mind as something that should be purchased or used).

What are you? The second layer of the pyramid deals with giving meaning to the brand trough two building blocks: brand performance and brand imagery. Brand performance is the way the product or service attempts to meet the consumer’s functional needs. Brand imagery deals with the way in which the brand attempts to meet customers’ psychological and social needs.

What about you (responses)? In the third tier of the pyramid you develop a consumer response to the brand. Keller proposes two building blocks for this tier, namely brand judgments and brand feelings.

What about you and me? The final tier of is called brand resonance. Resonance is characterized by the intensity of the psychological bond that customers have with the brand and their level of engagement with the brand.

I believe this is an interesting model, however I believe that today´s way of branding is much more focused on the consumer. The target comes first, and even if it´s important to have a core and identity, most time should be spent on finding a "click" between brand and consumer, where they are truly useful and meaningful to each other.

What model do you like?