Brand equity is a subset of total brand value. Intangible assets such as reputation and perceived brand quality, help companies compete effectively over the long run while increasing revenue, freeing cash flow, and strengthening shareholder value. Marketers agree that brands are assets, but do financial managers, analysts, and C-level executives concur? Brands must be treated as financial assets, and brand equity should be directly linked to financial value, argue William Neal and Ron Strauss in their article “Widening the Moat.”

The relationship between the prospective clients is interdependent upon several key brand development factors:

1. The knowledge the media rep knows about their business,

2. The patience to spend the necessary time to develop trust and confidence

3. Place…how the prospective client’s brand/name of business fits within the specific business classification and

4. Position vs competition and what the client believes how their consumers see them

5. What are the current Promotions

6. The overall sales within the county in which the prospective client’s business resides compared to the gross sales of the prospective client’s business [Found in the current Sales Management Survey of Buying Power or the current Census of Retail Trade found in most any public library. This is optional but provides the client with their share of market.]

7. This too is optional…the current share of voice, which is the client’s current total ad budget divided by the industry’s current ad budget

8. What marketing objectives the prospective client wishes to attain in the next twelve months

9. What the current creative is supposed to do.

These nine brand development factors are crucial in determining the client’s actual needs, which is the paramount solution to revenue and profit growth as opposed to advertising whichcreating a compelling user experience at every interaction. “Visitors come to your website and voluntarily expose themselves to your messages,” he said. ‘Consumers provide personal data, seek you out on search engines and click on your ads. They give you permission to communicate with them. You have to respect that and give back a rich experience.” is mostly related to only moving merchandise at the moment. The media rep who wants to earn the top money in the field for them and the client always takes the time to find out these nine market development factors which are only a part and parcel of what true brand equity is all about….the value of a given business within the consumer’s mind at present.

Yes it takes time, effort and a great deal of patience in assisting the client in reaching their optimum brand equity, but that’s what makes world class media professionals who view media sales as a career rather than something to do while waiting for something else to come along, and who make the six figure incomes each year. That’s what we call the Personal Financial Asset.

Passion, commitment, structure, discipline and continued practice are required to become the best of the best. If not, why even bother?

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In the past, the key to growth was access to capital; however, brand value “has assumed greater importance in companies’ growth strategies. Brand value allows for sustainable competitive advantage and signals that a company has developed attributes that are difficult to copy and often are unique to the company.” Since most brand value methodologies use current financial statistics to create estimates of future operating profits, they can be flawed. “Brands don’t fit the 12-month timescale of annual financial statements,” the authors state.

Brand equity is a subset of total brand value. Intangible assets such as reputation and perceived brand quality, help companies compete effectively over the long run while increasing revenue, freeing cash flow, and strengthening shareholder value. “Brand equity is a measure of the water in the lake (a reservoir of cash flow earned but not yet released to the income statement), which is akin to long-term value,” the authors state. “Brand equity serves as an early warning device, even when it’s not reflected (when treated as an expense) in current earnings. If it’s rising, it indicates that the company has been investing in future value. Conversely, it serves as an early warning device that the company is sacrificing future cash flows and value for short-term goals.”

Marketers should manage brand equity as a financial asset as well as employ it to increase enterprise value, the authors argue. “Marketing is about generating demand and the consequent income that flows from that demand,” they state. “In many product and service categories, brand equity is a significant driver of demand.” ¹

As each media executive, and I’m referring to those who sell media, attempt to surpass last year’s sales revenue, do they really think about what happens to the client’s reputation for its enterprise value amidst their competitors? Not at the 433 media companies we’ve taught. Most are mainly concerned with making the monthly/ quarterly budget, slamming the latest quarterly/monthly promotion/project down the local business owner’s throat because it was soooo specially priced and hanging out on line or waiting at the fax machine for the agency order to come in to save their derrières.