Is branding an effective tool for generating shareholder wealth for companies that are active in a business-to-business environment? Or, do other factors such as innovation and manufacturing efficiency--or the lack thereof--create or destroy shareholder wealth? Based on an examination of almost 1,700 companies listed either on the United States or European stock exchanges, this study reveals this crucial relationship could be described as a W-shaped curve with five distinctive phases, depending on the strategic branding position of the company. Used strategically, business-to-business (B2B) companies with a balanced corporate brand strategy generally yield a return to their shareholders that is 5%-7% higher. It is therefore vital that key executives, including the board of directors, systematically assess and monitor the strategic branding position of their company and how their branding investments are performing against key competitors. This study reveals that shareholders should insist on systematic performance feedback from the corporation regarding all key items in the balance sheet--including branding. As disclosed herein, very few of the companies analyzed possessed an optimal balance between branding and financial performance.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.