Linking brand to business financials: How brand valuation has helped DuPont unlock the value of its portfolio

Abstract

This paper is about an idea which has been more than ten years in the making. The idea is that brand valuation has the power to transform marketing, dramatically improve its effectiveness, change the way in which it is perceived and enable it to take its rightful place in the boardroom. To do this means thinking differently about brand valuation. It must be made simple, transparent and actionable. It must stop being about a number and start to be a tool for marketing decision making. Ogilvy & Mather has developed a new brand-value based framework for marketing. DuPont has applied it to link brand to business financials in order to address marketing challenges and unlock portfolio value. It has been used to provide the financial rationale for marketing budgets, rationalise the DuPont brand portfolio, generate new business for Teflon® and Kevlar® and brand the 1st July spinoff of its giant chemicals business.