BrandPower and Brand Equity Valuation: Complementary metrics

The corporate brand is one of a company’s most precious assets. It can be one of the greatest levers in building brand value. Beyond just building name recognition and reputation, a powerful brand is an accelerator – of growth, influence, and innovation. A powerful brand not only drives economic value, but also serves as the glue between a company’s actual business strategy and the ways in which it wins the minds and hearts of consumers. It is this power that the brand holds that ultimately determines whether people will buy its products and invest in the company.

BrandPower is a unique and useful quantitative measure of brand strength. It is, however, just one way of looking at brand performance. The more traditional view of a brand’s monetary value also has its place. When both are considered, it is possible to get a more complete, contextual view of a brand. We collect BrandPower data on such a large scale that it can produce information comparable to other key financial fundamentals. This solid foundation of data allows us to accurately generate a variety of useful metrics, such as Brand Equity Valuation and Communications Return-on-Investment.

BrandPower, through its Familiarity and Favorability metrics, enables prescriptive analysis of the brand for diagnostic purposes. This allows executives to assess strengths and weaknesses of the brand and identify where greater attention is needed. This information helps our clients to manage communications to enhance brand performance.

Brand Equity Valuation is the output of CoreBrand Analytics’ market value model. This unique valuation approach uses BrandPower in the context of the company’s financial statistics to determine how much of the company’s market capitalization can be assigned directly to the brand – typically 5 to 7 percent.

CoreBrand Analytics Brand Equity Valuation produces two numbers: percentage of market capitalization attributable to the brand and the corresponding dollar value.

• Percentage tells the people responsible for building the brand how hard that brand is working to build value for the company. As this measure rises and falls, the brand becomes more or less of a contributor to a company’s success. This is an ideal number for a company’s KPI dashboard and a measure of brand performance in the context of overall financial health.
• Dollar value helps communicate the brand’s asset value to senior leadership and other constituencies, ensuring that the brand is properly accounted for in M&A activity, royalty and licensing cases and other reporting vehicles.

Used in conjunction, Brand Equity Valuation and BrandPower help brand managers and senior executives identify the monetary contribution of the brand and uncover prescriptive insights to unlock its full potential.

This knowledge allows Tenet Partners to bring our full analytic and brand strategy resources to bear. With a complete picture of BrandPower and Brand Equity Valuation, we can predict valuation growth, model ROI, and inform strategic decision-making for our clients.

For more information on how we determine BrandPower and Brand Equity Valuation, see our Frequently Asked Questions.

The Way Forward

A message from our CEO and Chairman

Brands are boldly moving forward. This momentum is the strongest since the recession, thanks to significant investments in business model innovation, digital and brand. Corporate leadership is looking to deliver growth by reshaping customer experiences. Our Top 100 report shows these leaders are outpacing their peers.

The macro trends that are driving change are fairly concentrated – industry lines blurring, digital convergence, and the emergence of fast-moving disruptors. Together, these trends are altering consumer behavior, delivering new experiences and driving value through innovation. In some industries, the fast pace of change is overwhelming management teams.

To seize on the opportunity this presents, leaders are reframing the marketing function to have greater influence on operations and shape customer experience, digital transformation and design of organizational culture. Success today requires a broader, more holistic view of the customer. A human-centered philosophy can translate into a common language that unites the various disciplines of business to ensure the enterprise is future-ready for the opportunities ahead.

2015 marks the 25th anniversary of the CoreBrand^® Index, a rich data set covering 1,000 companies. This represents a milestone in Tenet’s mission of enabling leaders to create value in one of the most critical assets for any organization: its brand and reputation. With eyes to the future, we see exciting times ahead for those pacesetters who successfully wrap their business strategy and brand experience around their customers’ needs and aspirations.

We hope this 8th edition of the Top 100 Most Powerful Brands provides you with valuable insights as you seek to achieve brand leadership and drive business growth.

Hampton Bridwell
CEO, Tenet Partners

James R. Gregory
Chairman, Tenet Partners

Frequently Asked Questions

Press Room

The Top 100 Most Powerful Brands of 2015

Read the press release.

Top 100 Badge

If your company is ranked amongst the Top 100 Most Powerful Brands of 2015, and would like to receive a congratulatory badge to post on your website or share on social media, please contact Russ Napolitano.

The Top 100 Most Powerful Brands Logo

Tenet_2015_Top100_Logo

Infographics & Charts

Tenet_Top100_StockPerformance
BrandPower = Business Performance
Stock performance since the indexes hit bottom in March 2009 shows that the Top 10 brands have grown at about twice the rate of the market.

Tenet_Top100_ByBrandValue
The 2015 Most Powerful Brands by Brand Value

Tenet_Top100_BySector
View a breakdown of the Top 100 Most Powerful Brands by Sector

Tenet_Top100_FamFavMovement
All of the Top 100 brands are elite, but what can familiarity and favorability movement tell us about a brand?

Tenet_Top100_FastMovers
The Fastest BrandPower Movers of 2015

Tenet_Top100_BrandHighlights
Brand Highlights: By the Numbers

Tenet_Top100_ConsumerCyclicals
Consumer Cyclicals is the most represented sector amongst the Top 100. View the number of corporate brands represented in the sector.

Top 100 Most Powerful Brands of 2019

Each year, Tenet Partners analyzes the data in the CoreBrand^® Index (CBI) to determine the Top 100 Most Powerful Brands based on high awareness and positive brand perceptions. 2019 marks the twelfth year of the report. For a comprehensive look at this year’s findings, including sector trends and analysis, download the full report.

• Higher rank vs. 2018
• Lower rank vs. 2018
• Change of less than +/-2 or fewer ranks year-over-year

Culture of Innovation

by Dr. James R. Gregory

In business, Innovation is a concept that constantly re-invents itself.

Whether invigorating established business segments with fresh ideas or inventing entirely new business categories, innovation has become a foundational value for today’s successful corporations.

But to be more than a buzzword, innovation must be supported and promoted by management and employees throughout a corporation’s culture. This consistent Culture of Innovation (COI) can be seen in the ways a company puts a priority on advancing new ideas that will create value across all operations.

In theory, a Culture of Innovation would seem to be a worthwhile pursuit for any company to nurture. However, measuring and valuing the financial impact of a Culture of Innovation has eluded many corporations. Typically, organizations define innovation as a focus on R&D, or by the number of patents granted and new products developed.

While these are all significant quantitative components of innovation, a cultural definition for innovation must encompass the entire company, and the quantifiable results should be reflected in the financial performance as a whole.

These thoughts opened my doctoral dissertation that I defended last August at the Muma School of Business, University of South Florida. I was curious to find out how an engaged audience of impartial observers viewed the importance of a Culture of Innovation.

Culture of innovation and its impact on the cash flow multiple

Utilizing the quantitative research database of the CoreBrand Index™ (CBI) my dissertation studied, for the first time, the impact of the Culture of Innovation attribute associated with 160 large public companies. The findings were then analyzed with the cash flow multiple (CFM), which is a firm-wide financial variable that explains the premium investors are willing to pay over the cash flow of the corporation.

The CFM is calculated by dividing the stock price per share by the cash flow per share, which provides a calculation that reflects the premium value of market capitalization. Since estimates of future cash flow are a component of quarterly reports, the CFM has the advantage of being able to project expected returns into the future; this helps a company to evaluate the potential return on investment (ROI) for capital spending required for improving—and innovating—intangible assets.

The analysis evaluated whether COI is more or less predictive of the CFM than historical attributes collected in the long running, and highly reliable CoreBrand Index. The dissertation verified CoreBrand’s past research and reconfirmed that each of the individual attributes in the CoreBrand Index contributes a positive effect to the firm’s market value.

The study supported the conceptual framework that adding the additional attributes to the intangible assets of a company could explain even more of the unexplained variable associated with stock market value, which is paramount to the development of the emerging theory of intangible capital.

By adding Culture of Innovation attribute to the historical attributes measured by CoreBrand, the predictability of the cash flow multiple improved from 64% to 77%. This is not only statistically significant, but also an important breakthrough on the ability to forecast the potential return for investments made in intangibles such as brands.

The Theory of Intangible Capital

For more information please contact James Gregory,

jgregory@tenetpartners.com

A message from our CEO

WELCOME TO TENET’S 2019 TOP 100 MOST POWERFUL BRANDS REPORT.

This is a tumultuous time for corporate brands and leaders navigating the ever-growing complexities of global markets.

The past five years have seen the most significant expansion of brand value for U.S corporate brands in the history of the CoreBrand Corporate Brand Index. Yet, at the same time, some of the most iconic brands in history have fallen precipitously.

Without question, Digital Transformation and new business models are setting the standard. The dramatic rise of “platform” based companies, such as Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google, is forcing others to follow their lead. Affectionally called “FAANG” stocks after their initials, these notable examples account for 40% of the rise in the market and are even larger in Brand Value. In this current report, FAANG stocks represent a staggering $300 Billion of brand value.

A common thread that makes these companies unique is their unrelenting embrace of data to drive their platforms. For many of the companies that are lagging behind, closing the data gap is daunting as Big Tech is accelerating the digital economy at a blinding pace with levels of capital investments that are hard to match. So much so, regulators around the world are increasingly concerned about the power these corporates wield.

Brand Power is also playing an outsized role in the success of these leaders. Brand is not only a result of a well-spent investment in communications; it’s also a tool that focuses and delivers a competitive advantage. The network effect of the brand experience is well-played by these platform companies, and they are taking advantage of the opportunity.

WITH GREAT BRANDS COME GREAT RESPONSIBILITY

Technology companies have become the darlings of today’s businesses. They are employers of choice, enjoy strong reputations for management, and are loved by investors. This multiple dynamic becomes a powerful source of capital that enables these firms to scale in ways that most experts thought was not possible.

But there’s also a downside to so much brand power. New players are quickly learning that there is also a greater risk in being a big brand. Facebook, one of our fastest risers over the years in the Top 100, has declined for the first time in our research. Their misstep on consumer privacy and a blind eye to ethics has put Facebook’s management and reputation on the defensive. We expect similar stories to unfold in the years ahead as the world grapples with the profusion of intelligent systems, including artificial intelligence, machine learning and advanced analytics. These new technologies can deliver experiences that touch consumer emotions, and more darkly, even manipulate the masses. It’s a power of branding that is not yet well understood by these companies. Ultimately, how companies build stronger governance of their systems and how they align with consumers will be key.

TRADING IN BRAND VALUE

2019 is our third year as the data engine for the only brand-based index, BVAL, and the publicly traded ETF under the same stock symbol. The Brand Value Index seeks to find unrealized value in strong brands such as some American icons like GE, Amazon and Microsoft. That may not be a great sign for these companies, but a good one for investors. Our research shows that Brandpower tend to fall at a slower rate and are very hard to destroy rapidly. Even then, brands can show tremendous resiliency. As under-performing brands like GE struggle with the shift, we believe that the best of them—especially those companies with management teams who can embrace transformation—have an opportunity to create new value. Of course, a few will flame out, but that’s the exception, not the rule.

BRAND SCHOLARSHIP EXPLORES INNOVATION

Our work in exploring how perceptions of innovation may relate to a company’s ability to survive is telling. Dr. James Gregory, our Chairman Emeritus, recently completed a compelling paper that explores the relationship of innovation to a company’s valuation. He discovered that perception of innovation is a predictor of a company’s revenue multiple. Stop for a moment and think about it—a perception of any kind that predicts a financial component should be a wake-up call for all CEO’s and CFOs. Dr. Gregory’s work is a remarkable breakthrough that also illustrates the percentage of a company’s stock price is attributable to its corporate brand investments, as well. The work by our CoreBrand team to help leaders understand the value in these intangible assets is a source of great pride at Tenet, and an important tool for corporate leaders.

As you study the Top 100 brands and their movement in this report, it’s a look into the performance of leading companies, how they manage their brand asset, for better or worse. Our aim is to help leaders across the C‑suite and boards who must make difficult decisions have greater understanding of the role their incredible brand asset plays in driving corporate value, performance and resiliency.

Hampton Bridwell
CEO, Tenet Partners

Frequently Asked Questions