I led the brand valuation section of the day-long seminar on marketing measurement today. The seminar was run by Alan Middleton, the pre-eminent marketing professor in Canada and a true force of nature. It was a huge pleasure to collaborate with someone who is so passionate about his subject, and so voracious in his appetite for new information and perspectives.
The seminar participants were all from the agency side – and all motivated by the desire to upgrade the quality of their interactions with clients so as to evolve from “vendors” into genuine business partners.
They asked some very perceptive questions – but the defining point of my session was the reaction by one of the participants to the process for performing a brand valuation based on the earnings split approach. He looked at the matrix we had just created of the drivers of the customer purchase decision and the extent to which they were influenced by brand, thought for a while, then commented ”this all seems rather squishy to me.” Exactly. And in a single word, he articulated the huge concern over the subjective nature of brand valuation.
