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BD-BrandProtect Perspective:
Protecting the Integrity of Your Brand from Online Risk Exposure

Securing the Value of Your Brand

The financial costs of online infractions continue to rise when you take into account their effect on the value of your corporate brand. Companies that are typically targets of Internet-based crime are often well-known corporate brands. Many are household names that are used every day by millions of customers who trust those brands and believe they identify those companies as hallmarks of ethical behavior. Most critically, these corporate brands are ‘intangible assets’ that go largely unprotected outside of a corporations’ firewalls and security nets, despite possessing extremely high value in financial terms.

In fact, the financial value of a corporate brand as an intangible asset can and has been measured, as can be seen below in Figure 1. In the classic marketing sense, the corporate brand mirrors the identity of the corporation. ‘Brand’ is the essence of the corporate personality – who it is, what it stands for, its culture, values and role in the community. From a customer’s perspective, the brand represents all of the promises of performance in shaping the customer’s experience with the products or services that the brand represents across all touchpoints and channels.

Think of a number of examples: sugar and carbonated water, gasoline, bottled water, a computer chip or a car rental service. These products are essentially made from virtually unlimited resources but have distinct identities in our economy and social fabric – Coca-Cola, Exxon Mobil, Intel, Evian and Hertz. None of these brands came to prominence overnight. Their success as world-leading brands is in part a function of astute long-term marketing, a deep sensitivity to customers’ wants and needs, a transcendence from being economic entities to cultural icons and the ability to transform ideas into strategy through execution and a global presence.

Figure 1: Measuring the value of a brand

What is clear is that each of these brands – and many others – have economic value. Their value is not just in their ability to attract customers and generate revenue today, but in their ongoing ability to generate a solid stream of revenue well into the future. Arguably, each time your brand integrity is threatened by online attacks and infractions, your ability to earn an ongoing stream of revenue over time is compromised.

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