The Impact of Brand Rating Dispersion on Firm Value

May 11, 2013 Leave a comment

The Impact of Brand Rating Dispersion on Firm Value

Xueming Luo University of Texas at Arlington

Sascha Raithel Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich – Munich School of Management

Michael Wiles Arizona State University (ASU) – Marketing Department

April 30, 2013
Journal of Marketing Research, Forthcoming.

Abstract: 
This study examines brand dispersion — variance in brand ratings across consumers — and its role in the translation of brand assets into firm value. Dispersion captures the covert heterogeneity in evaluations of brands among consumers who like or dislike the brands, which would affect an investor’s decision to buy or sell a stock. The higher the dispersion, the more inconsistent and polarized cross-consumer ratings of the brands. Multiple analyses — from simple, model-free to time-series models — on 730,818 brand-day observations provide robust evidence that changes in brand dispersion matter for stock prices. Brand dispersion has Januslike effects: it harms returns but reduces firm risk. Further, downside dispersion has a stronger impact on abnormal returns than upside dispersion, indicating an asymmetry in brand dispersion’s effects. Moreover, dispersion tempers the risk-reduction benefits of higher brand rating in both short and long runs. Without modeling dispersion, brand rating’s impact on firm value can be over- or under-estimated. Managers should consider dispersion a vital brand-management metric and add this metric to the brand-performance dashboard.

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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