First, an overview of brand equity valuation methods
The evaluation of brand equity is a complicated and tedious work. Because of this, there are many disputes about the evaluation methods of brand equity in theoretical and practical circles. However, according to the basic characteristics of various evaluation methods, the evaluation methods of brand equity value can basically be divided into the following five categories.
First, the replacement cost method. That is, the brand value is determined according to the resource cost actually invested by the evaluated brand at present. In other words, the brand value depends on the cost of redeveloping a same brand team according to the existing market and technical conditions.
Second, direct evaluation method. That is, the value of brand assets is calculated directly according to the concept of brand. Take American evaluation company as an example, the company believes that intangible assets include the following contents: sales assets, trade names/trademarks, customer lists, packaging, backlog, advertising materials, franchising, shelf space, licenses, distribution networks and manufacturing assets. Patents, formulas, trade secrets, proprietary technology, non-patented technology, drawings, supplier contracts, new product development and financial assets. Support personnel (collective labor), software (software), copyright (copyright), core deposit (core deposit), non-competition clause, lease right (lease rights), employment contract (employment rights), database (database), excess pension plan, dismissal rate (unemployment allowance) and goodwill (goodwill).
According to the brand concept, the trademark, customer list and part of goodwill in the intangible assets mentioned above should belong to brand assets, that is, brand asset value-trademark value-customer list value-ten parts of goodwill value ①.
Third, the market/customer influence evaluation method. That is, the value of brand assets is evaluated according to the influence of brand on the market, that is, customers.
The market influence of brand comes from the influence of enterprise's early marketing efforts on customer psychology and behavior. Based on this, we can reveal the reasons that lead to customers' purchase, understand the customer's purchase decision-making process, and determine the brand value given by customers when they buy a particular brand product. Specifically, it is to evaluate customers' brand awareness, brand loyalty and brand image. The evaluation model and specific evaluation elements in this respect are shown in Table l②.
It can be seen that some models are simple in content, while others are comprehensive. The evaluation elements of "brand equity monitor" include both customer's psychological and behavioral factors and economic factors (balance between price and quality), while other models mainly evaluate customer's psychological and behavioral factors.
Although the specific evaluation methods of each model are different, the evaluation emphasis of related elements is basically the same. When evaluating customers' cognition of brand, it is mainly carried out from two angles: first, whether customers will think of a brand under the conditions of given product categories, needs to meet and other clues; Second, when the brand name is known, the customer's understanding of the brand and products includes brand identification, typical advertisements, brand personality, product range covered by the brand, characteristics of the brand products, etc. To evaluate the customer's attitude towards the brand, we mainly investigate: the degree of respect for the brand, that is, the reputation of the brand; The degree to which customers like the brand; Customer's perceived quality of brand; And brand image. The main concerns of investigating customer behavior are: the past buying patterns of customers; Customer's future purchase intention; And the possibility of changing brands. The focus here is to examine the customer's loyalty to the brand. In addition to these individual evaluations, it is also necessary to comprehensively examine the overall situation of the brand and analyze its relative position compared with competitive brands.
Fourthly, the evaluation method of Interbrand company. British company Interbyan put forward the method of inter-brand evaluation. This method estimates and determines the value of brand assets according to the market share, product sales and profitability of the enterprise, combined with the brand strength of subjective judgment. Its calculation formula is:
E=IXG
E: brand value; First, the average annual profit brought by the brand to the enterprise; G: brand factor.
First of all, we should separate the profits of enterprises and the profits brought by brands from 1. Specifically, it is divided into two steps: (1) estimate the excess income of a product or a business, that is, the balance of the future income of the product or business after deducting the income created by tangible assets. This balance reflects the degree to which all intangible assets work together in the process of generating income from products or businesses. (2) Estimate how much of the incremental income of the product or service should be attributed to the brand and how much should be attributed to the non-brand intangible assets, and then deduct the excess income attributed to the non-brand intangible assets. Then, the remaining excess return is the excess return that the brand will generate. When determining the ratio of excess returns created by non-brand intangible assets to total excess returns, Intel brand companies adopt the "brand function index method". The basic idea is to examine which factors affect the excess return of products from multiple levels and to what extent the brand promotes the formation of excess return. Although the "brand function index" contains subjective and empirical components, the Inter brand company thinks it is a more systematic brand function evaluation method.
Secondly, because G. brand factor, also known as brand strength multiple, refers to the expected profit period of the brand, it is necessary to estimate the brand. When examining the brand strength, Inter brand companies mainly pay attention to the following seven aspects: (l) Market characteristics. Generally speaking, brands that are mature, stable and high in market barriers industry score high in strength. (2) stability. Brands that enter the market earlier often have more loyal consumers than those that enter the market recently, so the brand strength score is higher. (3) the position of the brand in the industry. Leading brands, because of their greater influence on the market, will score higher intensity than other brands. (4) marketing scope. The wider the scope of brand marketing, the stronger the ability to resist competitors and expand the market, then the higher the strength score of this brand. (5) Brand trends. That is, the influence of brand on the development direction of the industry. The more modern it is in consumers' minds, the more it meets consumers' needs, and the higher the strength score of this brand. (6) Brand support. Brands that receive continuous investment and key support are usually more valuable. (7) Brand protection. Brands registered and enjoying the exclusive right to use trademarks and thus protected by trademark law have higher strength scores than unregistered brands or brands whose registration status is challenged. In addition, brands protected by special laws score higher than those protected by general laws. The wider the registration area, the higher the brand strength score.
Among the above seven factors, the higher the brand score, the stronger the brand competitiveness and the longer the expected profit period of the brand. According to a large number of investigations, Interbrand's evaluation method determines that the minimum expected profit period of the brand is 6 years and the maximum expected profit period is 20 years, that is, the value range of G is 6G20.
Fifth, the evaluation method of Beijing famous brand assets evaluation firm. With reference to the evaluation system of international brand companies and combined with the actual situation in China, Beijing Famous Brand Assets Appraisal Firm established the evaluation system of China brand. The main factors considered in this evaluation system are: brand market share (M), brand value-added profitability (S) and brand development potential (D). ~ The comprehensive value (P) of the brand can be simply expressed as:
P=M+S+D
The representative index of brand's market possession ability is the sales income of products; The value-added profitability of the brand, that is, the ability to exceed the average profitability of the same industry, is expressed by operating profit and sales profit rate; The representative indicators of brand development potential are complex, but all indicators are related to profits, mainly including: domestic and international registration status of trademarks, use time and history, product export, advertising investment and so on.
Under the condition of market economy, the fiercer the competition, the more average the profit level between industries. Because it is too early for China to develop a market economy, there is still a significant difference in profit rates between industries caused by the planned economy system. Therefore, this evaluation method has industry adjustment coefficients for the above three indicators, and the coefficients are calculated by the moving average method of 3 to 5 years. Through industry adjustment, the average ratio of the three parts is 4: 3: 3. Specific to different industries, there will be differences. For example, the first part of the value, the industry itself is large, such as the automobile industry, the weight in this respect is small, and the small industry with smaller industry scale is more important. The sum of the three parts is the brand value.
Second, the evaluation method of brand equity value evaluation
In fact, each of the above brand equity evaluation methods has its own characteristics and application purposes, but it also has its own shortcomings. The replacement cost method actually evaluates the external value of the brand. Therefore, the evaluation results by this method are often very low, even far from the actual value of the brand. However, in the process of independent brand transfer, the evaluation results of this method are more acceptable to both parties. In fact, it is really hard to say that brand transfer has transferred all the intrinsic value of the brand. At the same time, we should also pay attention to the implicit assumption that the replacement cost method evaluates brand value is that brand value will not depreciate over time, that is, brand cost does not need to be amortized year by year.
The direct evaluation method is very characteristic and logical only from the basic idea of the method itself. This method tries to get the total value of brand assets through direct addition on the basis of evaluating the components of brand assets separately. Its implicit premise is that brand assets are identifiable. The actual situation is not so simple and pure. It is indisputable that the law regards trademarks and customer lists as the elements of brand assets, but in fact, there are two problems that are difficult to be solved well. First, there is a strong uncertainty in determining the value of the customer list; Secondly, how much of the value of goodwill should be attributed to brand assets is lack of basis in theory and more difficult to operate in practice. Therefore, the biggest problem of direct evaluation method is the lack of operability. Furthermore, even if the part of goodwill value belonging to brand assets can be determined, the evaluation of brand assets still depends on the evaluation of goodwill value, and the value of goodwill cannot be directly evaluated. Therefore, it seems unrealistic to try to "directly" evaluate the value of brand assets, although this evaluation idea is reasonable. The idea of market/customer influence evaluation method is "different": it is not based on the investment needed to create a brand like replacement cost method, nor is it based on or mainly based on the expected excess return of brand assets in the future like other evaluation methods. This law is based on the influence of brand on customers in the market. Using this method to evaluate the value of brand assets, the theoretical basis of this method is that the fundamental reason why brand assets will bring excess returns to enterprises is that brands are meaningful to customers. In other words, if the brand is meaningless to customers, it can't be meaningful to enterprises. The significance of brand to customers is not only that brand is a symbol or symbol to identify the source of products, but more importantly, brand helps to simplify customers' purchase decisions. This is because when customers buy and consume products and services, they often face many risks, such as functional risk (the function is not as good as expected), material risk (the product may threaten consumers' health), financial risk (the product is not worth so much money), social risk (causing others to laugh), psychological risk (affecting consumers' spirit) and time risk (losing time to find other suitable products). It is an effective means to reduce the risk of purchase and consumption by using brands that you like and have consumption experience or brands that you are familiar with through other channels. In this sense, it should be said that the theoretical basis of this law is relatively reasonable. If the influence of brand on customers can be considered as comprehensively as possible in the operation process, the evaluation result of this method will be more realistic. However, the problem with this method is that all the factors considered in the evaluation process are qualitative rather than direct quantitative. Therefore, the premise of applying this method to accurately evaluate the value of brand assets is that the process of "quantifying" these qualitative factors must be "accurate". Obviously, it is difficult to do this anyway. Moreover, the degree of brand influence on the market/customers can only be known through a large number of investigations, and various deviations that may occur during the investigation will also affect the accuracy of the evaluation.
Internet brand company evaluation method is one of the most influential methods to evaluate the value of Microsoft in the United States in the world. Compared with the above evaluation methods, the characteristics and advantages of this method are mainly shown in the following aspects. (1) Based on the estimation of future income, evaluate the value of brand assets from the final result rather than the "process"; (2) The combination of quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis means, that is, the prediction of future income is mainly based on quantitative analysis means, while the division of future income of brand assets and non-brand assets and the estimation and determination of brand strength multiples are mainly based on qualitative analysis means; (3) The seven factors examined in determining brand strength include not only some indicators reflecting brand market influence, but also brand support (investment) and brand protection factors, so as to better reflect brand market competitiveness and future development potential. Of course, because the handling of many specific problems in the operation of this law needs to be based on "experience". Therefore, when using this method, inexperienced appraisers will inevitably face the problem that it is difficult to make the evaluation results accurate and reliable due to lack of experience. There are two main differences between the evaluation methods of famous brand assets evaluation firms in Beijing and the most influential brand value evaluation system in the world, namely Interbrand evaluation system: first, the profit index is not used as the basic index, because the loss factors of China enterprises are very complicated, including many non-economic factors, so the market possession index is selected; Second, the statistical objects are different. The statistical object of Interbrand evaluation method is brand, while the statistical object of Beijing brand assets evaluation firm evaluation method is enterprise, because it is unconditionally subdivided into brands for research at present. This method is basically the same as the Internet brand evaluation method.
Three. conclusion
The author thinks: (1) The value of brand equity is actually an intangible asset that cannot be confirmed, and the main part of brand equity value is integrated with goodwill value, which fundamentally determines the "innate" difficulty in brand equity evaluation. Therefore, no matter what specific evaluation method is adopted, the evaluation of brand equity can only be relatively reasonable, but not absolutely accurate. (2) There are many factors that affect the brand value, so it is reasonable to evaluate the brand equity value from multiple angles. This means that the diversification of brand equity valuation methods has its objective basis, and we don't need to ask for unification. At the same time, it also means that the results of evaluating the value of the same brand assets in many different ways will inevitably be inconsistent. (3) The choice of brand equity value evaluation method should depend on the evaluation purpose. The author thinks that the brand value determined on the basis of market/customer influence is the direct goal of brand development strategy. Therefore, the brand equity value should adopt the evaluation method of market/customer influence. Brand value based on the present value of future income is the highest goal of brand development strategy and the index of enterprise's future profitability. Therefore, the present value method of future income should be adopted, such as the inter-brand evaluation method and the evaluation method of Beijing famous brand assets evaluation firm.