BAV Model In Action Search Brand Directory

BAC in the News

NEW: Wunderman Finds Link Between Brand Building and Search Engine Use By Consumers
NEW: Le Monde (Winter 2010)
Risk Magazine (December 2009)
Brand Bubble named one of the Best Business Books 2009 by Strategy + Business (November 2009)
USA Today (August 2009)
Financial Times (August 2009)
CNBC Interview - Video (August 2009)

New Publications

Measuring the Contributions of Brand to Shareholder Value (and How to Maintain or Increase Them) (Fall 2009)
The Danger of a Brand Bubble
Recession Strategies for
Niche Brands
Recession Strategies for
Ubiquitous Brands
The Trouble With Brands

Brand Bubble Excerpt
The Brand Bubble
The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value and How to Avoid It

How to use brands to gain and sustain competitive advantage

Companies today face a dilemma in marketing. The tried-and-true formulas to create sales and market share behind brands are becoming irrelevant and losing traction with consumers. In this book, Gerzema and Lebar offer credible evidence--drawn from a detailed analysis of 15 years worth of brand and financial data using Young & Rubicam's BrandAsset® Valuator, the largest database of brands in the world--that business is riding on yet another bubble that is ready to burst--a brand bubble. While most managers still see metrics like trust and awareness as the backbone of how brands are built, they're dead wrong--these metrics do not add to increased asset value. In fact, by following them, they actually hasten the declining value of their brands.

Using a five-stage model, The Brand Bubble reveals how today's successful brands--and tomorrow's--have an insatiable appetite for creativity and change. These brands offer consumers a palpable sense of movement and direction thanks to a powerful Energized Differentiation. The Brand Bubble explains why brands with Energized Differentiation achieve better financial performance than traditional brands, and offers readers insight on how to develop Energized Differentiation in their own brands in order to create consumer-centric and sustainable organizations.

John Gerzema (New York, NY) is Chief Strategy Officer for Young & Rubicam Brands. He joined Young & Rubicam from Fallon Worldwide, where he created the firm's global expansion strategy. A member of The Council of Foreign Relations, he is the recipient of more than a half-dozen industry awards and has appeared frequently on/in CNBC, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and various industry publications.

Ed Lebar (New York, NY) is the CEO of BrandAsset® Consulting™, a division of Young & Rubicam Brands. He oversees the implementation of BrandAsset® Valuator, consulting across all lines of business, global accounts, and joint ventures. Many of the Fortune 500 companies are clients and employ the BrandAsset® Valuator model. He began his career at Young & Rubicam 32 years ago and has held the position of Professor of Economics at CCNY and Finch College.
YOUNG & RUBICAM BRANDS
Aligning brand strategy with business objectives

BrandAsset® Consulting frameworks used to assess and drive the strategic direction of a company's brand asset and intangible value.

Tools to Assess and Drive Strategic Direction

State of the Brand - Offers a comprehensive overview of brand development, health, identity and the competitive context among relevant consumers. Development of category and company specific strategies for competitive advantage.

Architecture / Sub-brands - Identifies the most effective structure of the brand portfolio.

DNA of Master Brand - Determines which elements of a brand's portfolio contribute positively to consumer perception and support a new brand positioning or other brand initiatives such as brand extensions.

Consumer Funnel - Assesses consumers' perceptions at different phases of the purchase cycle to identify and focus marketing efforts on those drivers that move consumers to purchase and commitment.

Brand Positioning - Recommends a positioning strategy to support brand priorities such as differentiating and energizing brands, pricing power, immediate sales growth, or long-term sales growth; in the context of current brand performance, brand perception drivers, competitor brand equity and positioning and the role of sub-brands.

Corporate Dashboard - Provides a summary view of brand metrics to enable executives to see key performance indicators for the brand.

Partnerships & Sponsorships - Identifies the potential brand benefits and risks of brand alliances like partnerships and sponsorships, including identifying prospective new partners and evaluating existing alliances.

Brand Stretch - Evaluates the ability of a brand to expand into, compete, and succeed in new categories based on existing brand equity and positioning.

Acquisition Analysis - Assesses the degree to which potential acquisitions have compatible or complimentary brand identities, identifying specific ways to build brand equity through synergies with target.

Touchpoints - Determines the impact of touchpoints on brand health/ brand position to transform customer experience and drive current performance and future growth.

Segmentation - Prioritizes a brand's consumers based on their economic value, needs, and any other factors that are central to a firms brand strategy. Approach ensures that segments can be applied to both strategic and tactical brand decisions.

Valuation - BrandAsset® Valuator directly links to the financials of a company in order to support brand growth and shareholder value management.