At Landor, Brand Building is the Name of the Game

What's in a name? A lot, if you ask Hayes Roth, chief marketing officer at Landor Associates. His consultancy has been looking at not only what the hot brand of the moment is, but also what brands have built considerable equity with audiences.

"Obviously there are many branding studies in existence," says Roth, who added that his firm's new Breakaway Brands Study, done with value management consultancy Stern Stewart, is notable because it looks at data over a three-year spread. And that will consistently produce different results. "If you look at BusinessWeek for example, it's the same brands every year," Roth says. Looking at continued growth, meanwhile, was more in tune with Landor's business model. We thought, 'Wouldn't it be interesting to see what brands have really done something with themselves to make a sustainable, demonstrable, valuable change to the brand by investing in itself in one form or another?'"

The study looked at more than 2,500 brands from the Young & Rubicam Brands' BrandAsset Valuator database and then measured the growth or decline of that brand from 2003 to 2006.