Brands: An Integrated Marketing, Finance, and Societal Perspective

The traditional tension between marketing and finance reflects the fact that marketing is more consumer facing and finance is more management and capital markets facing. The difference in perspective between the two is further widened by differences in the marketing and finance disciplines as well as among accountants, psychologists, and economists in the understanding of brands. An attempt is made to integrate and reconcile these perspectives into an account of how brands can play a vital role in the firm as a whole. With this goal in sight, evidence is reviewed on (1) the power of brands to create real added value for consumers (rather than conceal a lack of product information), (2) the complexities of accounting for the financial value of brands, (3) the relation of brand value to stock returns, (4) the need for methods of evaluating brands (beyond traditional marketing brand equity metrics and financial accounting valuations), (5) how brand value can be reported (since it cannot be included in financial statements), and (6) the expansion of brands to address societal problems through brand purpose coupled with brand engagement as a solution to the problem of firms devoting resources to stakeholders other than consumers without decreasing shareholder value.