A few weeks ago, the President & CEO of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) put out the following video blog about the association’s new initiative to develop and implement a system of generally accepted brand valuation standards – a system that, he says, our economy currently lacks.
In the video, Bob Liodice discusses the relationship between marketing and brand value. He is a firm believer that investing in the former is essential for the growth of the latter “If we don’t invest in marketing activities,” he says, “we could be damaging our brand value.”
The video comes in the midst of efforts from the Obama administration and the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children to cut back on the amount of junk food marketing and advertising initiatives specifically geared toward kids. Strict new guidelines have been proposed that could potentially cut current food & beverage advertising expenditures by 20%, reducing total sales by businesses in this industry by $30 billion in as little as a year. Of course, there would be job losses to go along with that dollar amount – 378,000 jobs over a four-year period, according to the ANA.
However, these brands won’t only be losing money and manpower. As Liodice notes in his video, marketing efforts directly relate to brand power, so if marketing initiatives are cut, brand value will also take a hit. He says that “we know empirically that strong brands means strong operating results, which means higher shareholder equity…organizations that have strong brands have a higher stock market value than those that do not.” Putting restrictions on how and to whom members of the food & beverage industry can advertise might not just affect these companies’ employees and profits, but our economy as a whole.
We’ve already seen some efforts to cut back on how specific types of foods are marketed to kids. In April, lawmakers in California voted to ban promotional toys from McDonald’s Happy Meals, and similar measures are likely to be put in place in other states in the months to come, though where and to what extent remains up in the air.
It will be interesting to see how new guidelines affect the promotional products industry as they’re implemented. If members of the food and beverage industry are forced to eliminate promotional toys and other kid-friendly initiatives from their marketing strategies, it will certainly have an impact that extends far beyond the brand value of those companies.
Do you think new marketing guidelines on food & beverage advertising will affect your business? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.