The Bank of America grew very large by acquiring other banks. Wall Street criticized it for not growing organically. A new CEO and CMO realized that marketing was highly inefficient. They set the objective of introducing accountability into the marketing function and putting the systems and metrics in place to manage the brand as a financial asset.
Our team valued the Bank of America brand across all its different businesses. We found different types of opportunity—some such as retail, where the brand was weak and needed bolstering, and others, such as credit cards, where the brand was strong but under-leveraged.
Adding these opportunities up amounted to a $9 billion increase in business value. Specific actions and investments were recommended to increase brand effectiveness, and the marketing budget reallocated. The results were highly positive, including a 33% growth in checking account sign ups and a major increase in customer satisfaction. The valuation was also used as the basis for other strategic decisions, including acquisitions, selection of alliance partners, brand architecture, and internal financial cost allocation.