Q) What do you think of Young & Rubicam’s Brand asset Valuator?

What do you see as its

main advantages and disadvantages?

Ans) The Brand Asset Valuator (BAV) is a database of consumer perception of brands created
and managed by Brand Asset Consulting, a division of Young & Rubicam Brands to provide
information to enable firms to improve the marketing decision-making process and to manage
brands better. Brand Asset Valuator and BAV also describe the Y&R group managing the
database.
BAV provides comparative measures of the equity value of thousands of brands across hundreds
of different categories, as well as a set of strategic brand management tools for planning brand
extensions, joint branding ventures, and other strategies designed to maintain and grow brand
value. BAV has now been linked to a unique set of financial analytics, which allows determining
a brand’s contribution to a company’s intangible value.
There are four key components of brand health in BAV – the four pillars. Each pillar is derived
from various measures that relate to different aspects of consumers’ brand perceptions and that
together trace the progression of a brand’s development. These four components for determining
brand value are –

1. Differentiation:-
Differentiation is the ability for a brand to be distinguished from its
competitors. A brand should be as unique a possible. Brand health
is built, and maintained by offering a set of differentiating
promises to consumers. And by delivering those promises to
leverage value.
2. Relevance:-
Relevance is the actual and perceived importance of the brand to a
large consumer market segment. This gauges the personal
appropriateness of a brand to consumers and is strongly tied to
household penetration (the percentage of households that purchase
the brand).
3. Esteem:-
Esteem is the perceived quality and consumer perceptions about the growing or declining
popularity of a brand. Does the brand keep its promises? The consumer’s response to a
marketer’s brand building activity is driven by his perception of two factors: quality and
popularity. Both vary by country and culture.
4. Knowledge:-
Knowledge is the extent of the consumer’s awareness of the brand and understanding its
identity. The awareness levels about the brand, and what it means, shows the intimacy that
consumers share with the brand. True knowledge of the brand comes through building of the
brand.
 How Brands Are Built
Four Primary Aspects

Brand Strength
Differentiation and relevance taken together say a lot about a Brand’s strength (brand vitality).
These two pillars point to the brand’s future value, rather than just reflecting its past.
 When Differentiation is greater than Relevance, the brand has room to grow. This is a
healthy pattern.
 When Relevance is significantly greater than Differentiation, the brand has become
commoditized. Its Uniqueness has faded and price has become the primary reason to
buy. This is an unhealthy pattern.

Brand Stature
Esteem and knowledge together create Brand stature, which is a “report card” on a brand’s
past performance and which determines the current power of the brand.
 When Esteem is greater than Knowledge, and the consumer says, “I’d like to get to
know you better.” Consumers have motivation to find out more about your brand.
This is a healthy pattern for the brand.

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 When Knowledge is greater than Esteem, consumers are saying, “I know you more
than I like you.” The brand has become too familiar and consumers have no
motivation to listen to you. Too much Knowledge has become a dangerous thing.

Mapping a Brand’s Life: the Power Grid

BAV uses a two-dimensional plot to

measure Brand Strength and Brand
Stature.
The strength is measured on the
vertical “y-axis” [Differentiation,
Relevance] and stature is
measured on the horizontal “x-
axis” [Esteem, Knowledge].
The Power Grid provides a model
for mapping and diagnosing the life
of a brand. New brands begin in the lower left quadrant – with low strength, low stature. As
the brand develops, it rises to the upper left quadrant – where strength is significantly higher
than stature. It is here where niche brands and brands with unrealized potential reside. This is
high margin territory. In order to maximize shareholder value, brands should be strategically
leveraged to move to the upper right quadrant, where powerful leadership brands reside.
When brands get into trouble, the first thing to erode is Differentiation, causing leadership brands
to decline. This loss in Differentiation reduces the ability to extend the brand across new
consumer and market segments. As a result, there is a huge loss in intangible value.

Advantages of Young & Rubicam’s Brand Asset Valuator

 Brand Asset Valuator is an important tool to assess a brand’s current achievements and
stature. It is even more powerful when the future potential of a brand can also be measured.
Y&R’s Brand Asset Valuator offers this opportunity.
 Combining exhaustive amounts of consumer data with a proven model of brand-building,
Brand Asset Valuator anticipates future operating earnings and operating margins. This
can enhance the marketing-decision process in a variety of substantive ways.
 Brand Asset Valuator can help managers understand marketplace opportunities and
the types of risk that go with them. It can provide a deeper understanding of consumer
behavior: for example, shedding light on reasons why some segments are willing to pay a
higher price for a highly differentiated brand.
 Brand Asset Valuator stands apart from other brand study aids in a number of ways. It is
predictive, focusing on leading indicators instead of lagging. It is exhaustive in every way,
size and scope. Most importantly, it evaluates a brand in the entire world of brands, not
in its “category.”
 Brand Asset Valuator also helps to determine a brand’s elasticity and helps to explore
beneficiary brand alliances.
 Lastly, Brand Asset Valuator is not only just useful for creating brands. It is useful for
managing brands in the long term—through ups and downs.

Disadvantages of Young & Rubicam’s Brand asset Valuator

 The major disadvantage associated with Young & Rubicam’s Brand asset Valuator is that
it is proprietary in nature and can be employed only by Young and Rubicam.
 Another disadvantage associated with BAV is that the measures underlying the four
factors may not be relevant across a wide range of product categories and thus these
factors tend to be abstract in nature and might not be related directly to product attributes
or benefits and more specific marketing concerns.

Nevertheless, the BAV model represents a landmark study in terms of marketers’ ability to
better understand what drives top brands and where their brands fit in with other brands.