Branding trumps advertising as driver of brand value
WPP brand consultancies Lambie-Nairn and The Partners, in collaboration with Millward Brown, have released findings from a global survey, Brand Value Growth. Based on analysis of 10 years of BrandZ data (between 2006 and 2015 ), the report reveals that brands with a strong brand proposition and strong advertising have increased their brand value by 168% over 10 years.
But while brands with strong branding and weak advertising saw an average growth of 76%, brands with strong advertising and weaker branding grew in value by only 27%. Those where both advertising and branding was weak grew by 21%.
“The most remarkable finding from this study is the extent of the brand value growth that comes from establishing a strong proposition and identity at the heart of a brand,” said Jim Prior, CEO of The Partners and Lambie-Nairn.
“The data clearly demonstrates that great advertising is, by itself, insufficient and inefficient- it needs to be underpinned by broader, deeper strategic and creative definitions. While brand consultancies have long argued this point in principle, this data clearly shows it.”

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1 Comment
chris robinson
10 years ago
Isn't this a bit of an oxy-moron? How can a brand have strong advertising but weak branding. Surely one of the key measures of advertising effectiveness are its achievements on brand positioning dimensions. Am I missing something here? Or were they defining ad effectiveness by simple recall measures? How could one even tell if a brand had poor positioning? How was that defined? An intriguing piece but ... ?
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