While debates may rage over exactly how to assess the value of brands, virtually everyone agrees that brands represent real and significant financial value to their owners. Managing a brand therefore requires careful and strategic investment and stewardship. But what are the drivers of brand value? Product quality, customer services, and in particular advertising, are some of drivers most commonly cited and studied. Until now, however, there has been relatively little research into the contribution of public relations to brand value. In a new study by Interbrand analyzed the positioning between a brand’s media prominence, and brand value across the world’s 100 most valuable brands.

Key findings included the following:

* The relationship between media prominence and brand value depends on “product involvement” – i.e., the degree to which customers research a given product or solution prior to purchase. Media prominence was more associated with brand value for “high involvement” products compared to “low involvement” products. Advertising expenditures, however, were a leading indicator only for “low involvement” products, and accounted for very little brand value among “high involvement” products.

* Media prominence was a particularly important component of brand value for computer-related industries, such as software and hardware manufacturers, as well as computer and Internet service companies, accounting for 48% of differences between companies’ brand values.

* The results suggest that, in general, media prominence accounts for approximately one quarter of brand value, although this value is often higher for high-involvement brands, and particularly so in technology. This underscores the importance of managing and growing brand value through public relations efforts.

In industries that involve more research before purchases are made, the editorial content that results from PR can account for nearly half of brand value. For example, in the computing industry, media prominence accounted for 48% of brand value, or 16 times that of the personal care industry (4%). Similarly, media prominence in the automotive, consumer electronics and financial services industries was 23%, 20% and 19% respectively.

The industries that sell high involvement products - where a buyer invests time and effort in deciding what to buy - have much higher correlations between media prominence and brand value than industries selling low involvement products, which are more likely to be bought on impulse. At the other end of the spectrum, advertising expenditures are a leading indicator only for “low involvement” products, and accounted for very little brand value among “high involvement” products. Advertising accounts for nearly one quarter of brand value for low involvement products, while it accounts for less than one percent of brand value for high involvement products.The study demonstrates the value of PR and how it becomes much clearer when media metrics are tied to business value rather than soft metrics that are only understood by PR professionals. While the study focused on how the volume of media coverage relates to brand value, reputation in the media is often a greater predictor of brand value and business outcomes such as sales than volume alone. In industries that exhibit a stronger link between media coverage and brand value, managers in these product categories need to pay special attention to the way the brand’s value is impacted by its communications activities.