Devoted to branding and building and protecting brands

I first heard the term "reputation management" back in the Medieval 1970s when I was helping manage the reputation of SRI-International (formerly Stanford Research Institute). Now there’s even more data to back up the claims many of us have screamed for years: that a good reputation – which some of us refer to a brand’s “promise” – is worth good money. How much?  Depends who you believe, but the point is that it just got harder to say that public perception is non-quantifiable.   A good image, in the best sense of the word, can jack a stock price.  How?  The way that Pamela Cohen and Jonathan Low figure, market value has a surprisingly significant element of public perception built in.  To the tune of billions of dollars for companies such as Pepsi, Target and P&G.  How else could or would J&J enjoy a higher P/E than Pfizer?  Why does Procter & Gamble get a premium over Unilever?  And there's way more to it than quality of earnings. A recent piece in BizWeek mag describes the stats and the process Cohen and Low plowed through in their effort to put a measurable value on perception.  The point is that they did it. The findings are enlightening, to say the least.  And reaffirming to anyone still associated with the reputation-management game. Check it out.