Brands as “separable assets”

What is a brand name worth, and how can it be valued? These questions have always been asked by company analysts and have recently also been the concern of accountants. In this contribution to the ‘brands debate’, Patrick Barwise and his co‐authors set out the current state of our knowledge on brands: do they last, are they stable and can their value be separated from those of other intangible assets? The authors have little doubt that brand names have an economic value, but find that attaching precise numbers to these valuations can be fraught with difficulties.