Brand Is A Business & The Business Is A Brand!

Many dominant brand and eponymous businesses have disappeared over the years. Remember Compaq? Kodak? Nokia?

- Shubhranshu Singh

Each a market-dominant brand, global in scope, led by sharp business experts. But what happened? Each day, a monolithic brand encounters a disaster – be it an oil spill, politically incorrect posture, exploitative labour practices, poor communication, service failure or failing engines.

Brand equity and appeal is a precious competitive asset. The power of a brand lies in its intangibility as well as its assumption of various tangible forms as products or brick and mortar.

The role of technology, innovations and brands has risen in relevance as businesses moved farther and wider. Globalization and the unfettered movement of massive capital, goods and services across borders, has made it important to manage brands, technology and talent on a worldwide basis.

As the convulsions of old world capitalism shake up the world order, the value of knowledge and branding has risen sharply relative to natural resources and physical equipment. This has reshaped corporate fortunes and national economies.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp bought the venerable Wall Street Journal in 2007, for a total consideration of $5.6 billion. Google purchased Double Click around the same time for $3.1 billion. DoubleClick was then 11 years into its existence. Then, Microsoft bought the even more fledgling aQuantive (started in 1997) for $6.3 billion. Now digest this – the hallowed establishment of WSJ with all its paraphernalia and clout has been sold for half the price of a couple of online ad serving firms.

When Kodak filed for bankruptcy, Instagram – a company with 12 employees and zero revenue – was purchased by Facebook for $ 1 billion. At the time, for that valuation, Facebook could have chosen to buy the New York Times.