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High-Tech branding - Financial sense or nonsense?
The brand as a company asset is now appearing on balance sheets
and company report and accounts. 1988 RHM (Rank Hovis McDougall)
made history by becoming the first company to include a brand
valuation on its balance sheet - attaching an asset value to its
brands. The brand - corporate or product - is becoming a governing
factor in financial valuation of any enterprise. Unless customers
and employees share in the company profits, it means little or
nothing to any of us. Executives care about their share options,
but they are alone in their passion. Thomas Gad (2001) states
that the most valued reason for choosing a driver other than profit
is that profit is not unique to your company. Brands thrive on
difference and difference gives competitive advantage.
Branding in high-tech markets is gaining increasing attention,
since there is a general consensus that branding becomes more
important as high-tech products become accessible to mass consumers
(Schoenfelder and Harris 2004). As technologies mature and product
features are duplicated, consumers are often unable or unwilling
to differentiate between brands on rational attributes alone (Temporal
and Lee 2001). High-tech industries have developed and built on
commercialisation of new scientific advances that have been developed
in the last 20 years (Slater 1992). Slater continues to say that
these industries are growing rather than declining. Above all
these industries contain companies within those industries that
are using product or process technology as major contributors
towards competitive advantage. Many companies had great brands,
but no longer exist. Sinclair were great innovators with no marker
power. Lotus are now a brand of Microsoft. Why did they fail and
others succeed?
Please contact us if you would like to know more.
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