LOS ANGELES —Speaking directly to MUFSO 2007’s “Fire Up Your Brand” theme, corporate-branding analyst and consultant James Gregory summed up his advice to chain leaders at the conference by stressing that foodservice brands can best be enhanced through “clear, concise, consistent communication.”
In Gregory’s keynote address, the chief executive of Stamford, Conn.-based CoreBrand explained how his company attempts to help clients understand, build, express and measure the value of their corporate brands. By applying CoreBrand’s proprietary research methods and quantitative analysis, the consulting firm seeks to help shape client companies’ brand identities in ways that can help boost revenues and stock values. —Speaking directly to MUFSO 2007’s “Fire Up Your Brand” theme, corporate-branding analyst and consultant James Gregory summed up his advice to chain leaders at the conference by stressing that foodservice brands can best be enhanced through “clear, concise, consistent communication.”
Though Gregory conceded that he began compiling CoreBrand’s “Corporate Branding Index” 16 years ago without having any background as a researcher or statistician, the CBI has grown into a database that gauges the brand values of some 1,200 companies in 47 industries. —Speaking directly to MUFSO 2007’s “Fire Up Your Brand” theme, corporate-branding analyst and consultant James Gregory summed up his advice to chain leaders at the conference by stressing that foodservice brands can best be enhanced through “clear, concise, consistent communication.”
A key aspect of the CBI is that it makes proportional and dollar-value conclusions about “brand equity as a percentage of market capitalization,” Gregory explained. —Speaking directly to MUFSO 2007’s “Fire Up Your Brand” theme, corporate-branding analyst and consultant James Gregory summed up his advice to chain leaders at the conference by stressing that foodservice brands can best be enhanced through “clear, concise, consistent communication.”
His message to the MUFSO crowd offered reassurances that the collective brand power of the food-service industry is helping to ease the impact of the economic stresses stunting consumer spending. —Speaking directly to MUFSO 2007’s “Fire Up Your Brand” theme, corporate-branding analyst and consultant James Gregory summed up his advice to chain leaders at the conference by stressing that foodservice brands can best be enhanced through “clear, concise, consistent communication.”
CoreBrand’s corporate-branding index numbers for foodservice have been among the highest and fastest-growing of all industries for the past several years, Gregory said. According to his company’s formulas, restaurants are on par with packaged consumer goods in terms of brand equity as a percentage of corporate market value, with packaged-products companies scoring 13.28 percent on that gauge, versus foodservice firms’ 13.21-percent standing. By comparison, only 4.54 percent of insurance companies’ market capitalizations can be attributed to their brand equities, and home builders derive only 1.99 percent of the corporate values from their brands. Makers of computers and peripherals do better with their brands, scoring 8.15 percent of the total stock values from the selling power of their corporate identities. —Speaking directly to MUFSO 2007’s “Fire Up Your Brand” theme, corporate-branding analyst and consultant James Gregory summed up his advice to chain leaders at the conference by stressing that foodservice brands can best be enhanced through “clear, concise, consistent communication.”
Gregory portrayed unattained opportunities that some foodservice companies might exploit from more effective brand building or brand utilization. For example, as extremes on the scale of foodservice brand values, he compared the CBI’s brand-equity-to-market-capitalization ratio for segment-dominating Starbucks Coffee with that of the industry’s largest casual-dining operator, Darden Restaurants. —Speaking directly to MUFSO 2007’s “Fire Up Your Brand” theme, corporate-branding analyst and consultant James Gregory summed up his advice to chain leaders at the conference by stressing that foodservice brands can best be enhanced through “clear, concise, consistent communication.”
Starbucks’ industry-leading 19.59-percent score has made its brand’s contribution to the company’s market capitalization worth $5 billion, based on recent stock prices, Gregory stated. Conversely, he said the 0.63-percent-of-market-cap brand value of “Darden Restaurants”—a name known nowhere near as well as the company’s popular Red Lobster and Olive Garden chains—contributes only about $40 million to Darden shares’ total market value, which currently exceeds $6.33 billion. —Speaking directly to MUFSO 2007’s “Fire Up Your Brand” theme, corporate-branding analyst and consultant James Gregory summed up his advice to chain leaders at the conference by stressing that foodservice brands can best be enhanced through “clear, concise, consistent communication.”
Though such metrics would appear to depend somewhat on analyses of the subjective perceptions of consumers and investors, CoreBrand’s CBI findings help illustrate that “strong brands elicit strong opinions,” Gregory said. —Speaking directly to MUFSO 2007’s “Fire Up Your Brand” theme, corporate-branding analyst and consultant James Gregory summed up his advice to chain leaders at the conference by stressing that foodservice brands can best be enhanced through “clear, concise, consistent communication.”
He underscored that point by citing the recent embarrassment suffered by computer maker Apple Inc. Despite its legions of avid fans and the enormous popularity of its iPods, Apple recently suffered a black eye by cutting the price of its months-old iPhone by $200. The iPhone price-slashing debacle “made everyone who bought the phone feel like a sucker—not a good way to treat your most loyal customer,” he said. —Speaking directly to MUFSO 2007’s “Fire Up Your Brand” theme, corporate-branding analyst and consultant James Gregory summed up his advice to chain leaders at the conference by stressing that foodservice brands can best be enhanced through “clear, concise, consistent communication.”
Gregory said even iconic brands like McDonald’s could boost their fortunes by emphasizing intangible assets that build consumer satisfaction. —Speaking directly to MUFSO 2007’s “Fire Up Your Brand” theme, corporate-branding analyst and consultant James Gregory summed up his advice to chain leaders at the conference by stressing that foodservice brands can best be enhanced through “clear, concise, consistent communication.”
“The value of the [McDonald’s] brand was growing mostly through strong financial performance,” he said, observing that as the overall restaurant industry’s brand index rating grew more favorable, McDonald’s individual index number had remained relatively steady. —Speaking directly to MUFSO 2007’s “Fire Up Your Brand” theme, corporate-branding analyst and consultant James Gregory summed up his advice to chain leaders at the conference by stressing that foodservice brands can best be enhanced through “clear, concise, consistent communication.”
Demonstrating the value of their corporate brands has become more important to companies since the Financial Accounting Standards Board established the FASB 157 yardstick a year ago, setting out fair-value methods for determining the worth of assets and liabilities, Gregory said. —Speaking directly to MUFSO 2007’s “Fire Up Your Brand” theme, corporate-branding analyst and consultant James Gregory summed up his advice to chain leaders at the conference by stressing that foodservice brands can best be enhanced through “clear, concise, consistent communication.”
Key to any effort to increase brand value, however, are a few fundamentals, he stressed. “Think holistically,” Gregory recommended while advising corporate leaders to “paint a vision” of the future, and focus on “consistent communications and marketing.” —Speaking directly to MUFSO 2007’s “Fire Up Your Brand” theme, corporate-branding analyst and consultant James Gregory summed up his advice to chain leaders at the conference by stressing that foodservice brands can best be enhanced through “clear, concise, consistent communication.”
