Method

An estimate that shows its working

How the model is built, which standards it follows, and where its limits are.

A brand's true monetary value is only proven when someone pays for it, in an acquisition or a licence deal. Every other figure, including ours, is an estimate.

Standards

ISO 10668

Monetary brand valuation. Requires legal, behavioural and financial analysis and a sensitivity analysis. Full reports follow its structure.

ISO 20671-1

Brand evaluation. Each dimension is assessed and every data source is documented.

ISO 20671-2

Brand impact is measured against an unbranded reference, using observed or stated preference. We use observed preference.

Brand contribution without surveys

The company's own data already holds the comparison a survey would make: customers who knew the brand beforehand, and customers who did not. The difference between them is the brand's effect.

How the signals are weighted depends on the industry. A brand search ratio alone is too simple a measure.

  1. 01

    Win-rate difference. Win rate on bids where the customer knew the company, against bids where it did not.

  2. 02

    Demand origin. Share of new customers who arrived by the brand's name rather than through a generic channel.

  3. 03

    Price premium. Realised prices against competitors' prices, including winning prices on lost bids where known.

  4. 04

    Wins at equal price. When every buyer knows every supplier: how often the company wins against each competitor when prices are within about 5%. Wins above an even split are attributed to the brand.

What is not counted as brand

Repeat purchases by existing customers are attributed to customer relationships, not to the brand, as in purchase price allocation. Strong customer relationships therefore do not inflate brand value. Quality differences such as delivery time or network coverage are held constant so they are not credited to the brand.

Why not relief from royalty

The result of relief from royalty depends heavily on which royalty rate is chosen, and comparable rates vary widely. We measure the brand's effect from the company's own observed behaviour instead, and use transaction data as a check.

Calibration and validation

Without surveys, credibility comes from checking the measures against each other and against prices actually paid.

Check
How
Acceptance
Transactions
Lite run on pre-deal data for acquired companies, compared with the trademark value recorded
Range contains the recorded value in at least half of cases
Lite vs. Full
Both run for every pilot
Full value falls inside the Lite range
Reproducibility
Two analysts run Lite for the same ten companies
Base values within 25%
Calibration survey
Once, in 3–5 pilots: does the win-rate difference match a choice survey?
Difference under 10 pp

The acceptance limits are proposals and have not yet been validated in practice.

Limits

  • Lite is a calculation engagement: the method and assumptions are agreed and disclosed, but not every input is verified. It always reports a range, never a single figure.
  • A Full valuation is not an IFRS, tax or audited value.
  • The result is an estimate. Its use in disputes, licensing, transactions or tax is for the parties and their advisers to decide.
  • Where a company has no bid, lead or customer data, a short survey replaces the missing comparison.

Questions about the method?

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