It’s not just price that matters, but value. Peter Walshe, global brandz director at brand, media and communications research company Millward Brown, explains why Amazon was recently labelled the most “Value-D” brand in the world in the company’s latest research study Value-D: Balancing Desire and Price for Brand Success.

In the current economic climate many brands worry about their prices being perceived as being too high, leading to lost business. Others are concerned that prices are too low leading to profit loss. Even the most successful and intuitive merchants still struggle to find the sweet spot where the desire consumers have for a product perfectly matches the price they’re willing to pay. This is perhaps why too many brands fail to fully optimise their power and instead overemphasise “price” and downplay “desire“. Yet the consumer usually desires a brand first and then considers the price to determine whether to purchase or not. Amazon.com has not only found the right balance, it has mastered the art of being a trusted brand that consumers want to buy goods from. Its pricing is perceived to be great value, but it is its brand power that attracts customers in the first place.

In this post-recession world, where cautious spending by consumers is now the norm, price alone is not enough to attract consumers. People still want to buy brands that they love. In fact on average only seven per cent of consumers buy on price alone, but 81 per cent regard brand as an important reason to purchase. Commercial success is difficult to achieve without addressing the shifting balance between “desire” and “price“.

Global Top 10 Value-D brands are:

 UK Top 10 Value-D Brands

Source: Millward Brown

Methodology

Value-D is a special analysis from the BrandZ study, commissioned by WPP and conducted by Millward Brown and which measures thousands of brands across 20 countries. The Value-D study is based on consumer interaction with more than 7,000 brands worldwide and was conducted during February and March 2011. It begins with insights from The Futures Company, an expert in anticipating changes in consumer attitudes and behaviours that drive new opportunities and value. It separates brands into cheaper ones or more expensive. Low-priced brands can still be perceived to be a “poor value” if they don’t create desire. Conversely, even in price-sensitive categories, brands who generate strong desire are seen as “great value”. The more expensive brands can justify their premium or simply be too expensive. Any score over 100 is considered to be strong as it indicates the optimum value mix of price and desire.