Research Marketing

The bottom-line impact of corporate brand investment: An analytical perspective on the drivers of ROI of corporate brand communications
Received (in revised form): 26th February, 2001

JAMES R. GREGORY is founder and CEO of Corporate Branding, a global strategy and communications firm that specialises in helping companies measure, understand, craft, express and leverage their corporate brands. He has authored two books on the subject of corporate branding, ‘Marketing Corporate Image’ and ‘Leveraging the Corporate Brand’, and is currently working on a third, ‘Branding Across Borders’.

Abstract
Corporations and other organisations have come to realise the importance of a strong image. Many corporate studies have shown an association between image, purchase intent and sales revenue.
Image has been shown to affect not only sales volume but also the price that customers will pay for the products and services offered. With respect to stock selection, successful investors such as
Warren Buffett have long recognised the value of strong brand names and buy stocks partly on the basis of image.
Until recently, however, companies have been unable to put any reliable measure on the payback from these investments. Recent work by researchers at Corporate Branding has changed this. Over the past eight years the company has studied the relationships between corporate advertising, corporate brand image, sales growth, stock market multiples (such as price/earnings ratio), stock price and shareholder value. These relationships have been quantified, and can be used to help establish the likely return on communications investment in terms of increased shareholder value. CORPORATE BRAND INVESTMENT

James Gregory
Corporate Branding LLC, 470
West Avenue, Stamford, CT,
USA
Tel: [phone];
Fax: [phone];
E-mail: [e-mail]

Corporations around the world spend large amounts of money on corporate communications each year in an