But Brand Directory’s evaluation of banking brands for 2014, in association with The Banker, does an interesting job of placing a monetary value on the intangible asset that is an organisation’s brand. And this year, as shown below, ANZ pips CommBank at the post, to take out first place in the Australian rankings.
In simple terms, brand valuation calculates the difference between book value and market capitalisation. But Brand Directory use a range of calculations in an attempt to get a handle on what a brand may actually be worth. Their methodology is called the Royalty Relief Method.
Now, I prefer more straight up calculations – less opinion and more fact – but there is something quite appealing in the brand strength index. The use of a balanced scorecard across a range of business indicators sounds great. But I digress.
The real reason these kinds of rankings are useful is that they allow those within the business to get a sense of whether the brand is resonating in the marketplace. Not with analysts, but with potential and existing customers. It marks you out as a player or a stayer. And because leaderboards shift and change over time, it helps to determine, relative to your peers, whether your brand/marketing efforts are shifting the dial.
And if I was on the brand side trying to go deeper with these statistics – I’d bring my own, internal knowledge into play. I’d look to assess, year over year, what my spend and resourcing commitment was – so that I had an even better insight into what works or doesn’t. And then maybe, just maybe, there’d be an ROI figure that I could apply to my efforts. But this would be my own little secret. Another intangible that I’d add to my brand value.
