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Scott M. Davis: Scott Davis is the managing director at the Chicago office of Prophet Brand Strategy (www.prophet.com). He is a former marketing and distribution manager at Procter & Gamble. Scott is the author of Brand Asset Management: Driving Profitable Growth through Your Brands(Jossey-Bass, 2000).
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: Excerpted with permission of the publisher Jossey-Bass, a Wiley company, from Brand Asset Management. [copyright] 2000 by Jossey-Bass Inc. This book is available at all bookstores, online booksellers, and from the Jossey-Bass Web site at www.jbp.com, or call 1-800-956-7739.
Companies today are beginning to realize that capitalizing on one of the most important assets they own - the brand - may help them to achieve their longer term growth objectives not only more quickly, but also in a more profitable way. These companies are starting to view their products and services as more than just a "thing" a customer buys. This makes sense, because brands are not only what a company sells, they are what a company does and, more importantly, what a company is. In fact, most brands are why a company exists, and not the other way around.
Many companies, though, are not maximizing their financial returns because they are not maximizing the power of their brands. For instance, if your company has sales of $100 million, I believe you can increase revenues by $30-$50 million with commensurate profits over the next five years. This will happen if, and only if, you decide to let the brand help drive your growth and you take advantage of what is the most important weapon you have at your disposal - your brand.
A brand is an intangible but critical component of what a company stands for. While a consumer generally does not have a relationship with a product or a service, a consumer can have a relationship with a brand. A brand represents a set of promises. It implies trust, consistency, and a defined set of expectations. The strongest brands in the world own a positioning in the consumer's mind that is unique to that brand and can universally be articulated by almost everyone. When you think of the brand 3M, innovation comes to mind. When you hear the brand Hallmark, caring comes to mind. When you hear the...