Nevertheless, building a brand is difficult. Part of the reason is that the market is affected by increasing competition and a fast evolving MarTech landscape. Your brand plays an important role in what market position you achieve – if you don’t have any position, your numbers will be low.
So, the interesting question is: How do you measure the value of your brand?
The value of your consumers choice
When we refer to brand value, it doesn’t always come down to a calculation with two lines below the answer. The true value of your brand appears in the reflection of the consumers brand preference. A good example is grocery stores. The large grocery chains spend huge amounts each year on brand building.
It’s a highly competitive market and yes, we all need food to survive. And we wouldn’t stop grocery shopping even if the chains stopped promoting themselves.
But there is a reason why consumers prefer one brand over another. The value is in the brand, how your brand is perceived and what factors consumers evaluate to be most important in their decision making. If it is most important to buy inexpensive groceries and a wide assortment is not, Lidl would perhaps be a good choice. If assortment and high quality is most important, perhaps Carrefour is a better choice?
This is the value a strong brand will establish, your brand becomes the preferred choice over your competitors. This value is priceless.
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Plus and minus = value
If we were to put two lines beneath the answer, it would be calculated as acquisition and sales condition. Like when Google purchased YouTube for 1.65 billion dollars in 2006. Without going into the actual negotiations, the agreement concluded that the brand and YouTube was worth the investment and the purchase price was given.
If you like crushing numbers, looking at marketing research that provides insight to how your market position against the sales growth or sales decline affects your brand awareness, is a way to evaluate your brand value.
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A strong brand and happy customers = value
When you work with brand building you know that consumers aren’t necessarily purchasing a product or service, they pay for the expectations they associate with the brand. A well-prepared brand and proper strategies make sure your customers return and/or stay. A good example is Netflix vs. Disney+. Both gigantic in streaming services and their budgets for brand building are nothing but gigantic.
However, their services are quite different. On one hand we have Netflix who continuously release news and focus on quantity. If a new series or season is out, they release it all at once. In other words, they are confident enough to trust that their subscribers stay with them and don’t leave after finishing a series. They have established a brand where the consumers know that new exciting content is released frequently.
Disney+ on the other hand is a fairly new concept but has become popular. The interesting part with Disney+ is that even prior to the launch they managed to create brand expectations. Everyone already had associations to the Disney brand, a brand that has been with us our entire lives. Theme parks, merchandise, movies, or cartoons. From the announcement that Disney+ was in the making, we have been waiting for it and a year after the official US launch, they have outperformed their expectations in subscribers.
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Two services targeting the same audience that are both succeeding with their brand building. Nevertheless, even though they are competitors, it’s not unusual that subscribers use both services at the same time, because both brands deliver values we appreciate.
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Your brand = value
The most important asset a company has is the brand and everything connected to it. The brand defines who you are, your vision and the expectations you market. Your brand provides a unique identity. The brand value is within the brand, both in terms of your brand management and how you succeed with the brand strategy goals.
Success, and becoming the preferred consumer choice, does not happen overnight. There is a lot of work behind it. With proper brand management, it is easier to accomplish your goals. Make sure to establish proper branding processes that reflect your goals and ambitions while your brand is cared for. Increased brand value = Increased growth.