Given the global marketplace and the pervasive impact of technology on reputation, a company’s brand is increasingly becoming a major factor in its success. While most business owners and managers understand the general importance of a company’s brand, they are a little less clear on what can increase or decrease a brand’s value. Most business owners don’t know how to go about increasing and leveraging the worth of its company’s brand.
To better understand brands, let’s consider what factors are used to evaluate the biggest mega-brands. There are now a number of brand consultants that conduct surveys to identify and rank how the top brands are doing and how those brands are impacting corporate bottom lines. For example, Interbrand conducts an annual survey entitled 100 Best Global Brands. Milward, Brown also puts out an annual ranking of brand value entitled BrandZ’s Top 100 most Valuable Global Brands. Credit Suisse also issues an annual report called Great Brands. There are many other such reports.
Each of the rankings looks to monetize the value of a company’s brand. The factors assessed vary from survey to survey. They are also weighted differently according to industry or category. That said, the major surveys are based on hundreds of thousands of interviews examining tens of thousands of brands globally. They parse billions of pieces of data that are then calculated to generate a brand value score for each company. They examine the point where a company’s sales, marketing, operations and financials collide with public perception. So what factors do these brand experts consider in calculating a brand’s value? Continue reading