Perception decides value. And value compounds over time.

The thesis

There are two markets within the same business. There is the market you see, made of product, of price, of specifications. And there is the market that decides, made of perception: the impression that forms in milliseconds, that is stored in memory and that is summoned at the instant of choice. A company that manages only the first is managing the present. Perception is the asset that carries value from one quarter to the next, and from one year to the years ahead.

The thesis we defend, and which the evidence below underpins, has three steps. First: perception decides, and it decides fast, before the rational argument comes in. Second: perception does not stay outside the experience, it enters it and reconfigures pleasure itself, preference and choice, above the product itself. Third: that perception is tied to financial value, and that value is not a spike, it is a slow compounding that accumulates over years.

NP exists to convert perception into a financial asset. Whoever refuses to build that asset does not stay neutral. They are left optimising the now, and the now always ends.

The scientific evidence

Perception decides, and it decides before the argument

Judgement of someone forms in about a tenth of a second. Willis and Todorov showed participants faces for 100 milliseconds and asked for ratings of traits such as competence, likeability and trustworthiness. Those ratings correlated strongly with those made with no time limit at all. Giving more time, 500 or 1000 milliseconds, did not significantly improve the correlations: it only increased the observer's confidence in their own judgement and made it more negative. Trustworthiness was the most robust trait of all (Willis & Todorov, 2006, Psychological Science).

The threshold can drop even lower, but not everything is instantaneous. Bar, Neta and Linz found consistent impressions from the information of the first 39 milliseconds. Threat perception was already stable at 39 milliseconds, but not at 26. And intelligence perception was not consistent at such short exposures (Bar, Neta & Linz, 2006, Emotion). The correct reading is not that everything is decided in the blink of an eye, it is that some judgements, the most primary ones, arrive before any deliberation, and others take more time.

The same pattern appears in interfaces. Lindgaard, Fernandes, Dudek and Brown, of Carleton University, showed that the visual appeal of a web page is assessable in about 50 milliseconds, and that this assessment is highly correlated with the one made after more prolonged scrutiny (Lindgaard and colleagues, 2006, Behaviour & Information Technology).

That little information suffices for a stable judgement is a broad generalisation. Ambady and Rosenthal's meta-analysis on thin slices showed that brief samples of behaviour, of less than five minutes, predict objective interpersonal outcomes, and that longer observations did not increase accuracy. Observations of less than half a minute did not differ from those of four to five minutes. The global effect size was r = 0.39 (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1992, Psychological Bulletin; reinforced in 1993, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology).

And that fast perception even moves the real choice, with one condition. Milosavljević, Navalpakkam, Koch and Rangel had participants choose real foods and found that visual saliency influenced choices more than declared preference, but only in fast decisions. The bias grew with cognitive load and was stronger when preferences were weak (Milosavljević and colleagues, 2012, Journal of Consumer Psychology).

Perception enters the experience

The next step is stronger than "the packaging draws attention". Brand perception alters what the person actually feels.

McClure and colleagues gave people Coca-Cola and Pepsi to drink, almost identical in chemical composition, inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging device. In the anonymous delivery, activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex correlated with behavioural preference. In the delivery with the brand visible, knowledge of the brand of one of the drinks had a determining influence on the expressed preferences and on the measured brain responses (McClure and colleagues, 2004, Neuron). Brand information, and not chemistry, reconfigured preference and neural activity itself.

The proof of the mechanism became causal with brain-lesion patients. Koenigs and Tranel tested people with lesions in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the region that assigns symbolic value. In them, the brand effect disappeared: 71% chose labelled Pepsi against 39% labelled Coca-Cola, whereas the control groups switched to Coca-Cola when the brand appeared (Koenigs & Tranel, 2008, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience; VMPC n = 12, comparison with other lesions n = 16, control n = 16). Without the region that assigns symbolic value, the brand no longer moves the choice. It is the difference between observing a correlation and demonstrating a mechanism.

The same is seen with price, which is a signal of perception. Plassmann, O'Doherty, Shiv and Rangel gave wines identified by different prices to taste. Reported pleasure rose with price (r = 0.59, p < 0.001), and activity in a valuation region tracked it. They presented three wines as if they were five, repeating two with a high price and a low price. Without the price, in a later tasting, the differences disappeared (Plassmann and colleagues, 2008, PNAS, n = 20).

The phenomenon is neither new nor dependent on neuroimaging. As early as 1964, Allison and Uhl gave regular drinkers competing beers, blind and then with the label. Blind, they did not significantly distinguish their own brand and rated the beers similarly. With the labels visible, brand identification altered the ratings in favour of their own brands (Allison & Uhl, 1964, Journal of Marketing Research, study conducted by the Carling Brewing Company, several hundred drinkers).

And perception acts before consumption, not only after. Lee, Frederick and Ariely served a normal beer and an "MIT beer", which carried a few drops of balsamic vinegar. Those informed of the ingredient before tasting liked it less. Those who only learned after tasting did not significantly alter the judgement (Lee, Frederick & Ariely, 2006, Psychological Science). The expectation shaped the sensory experience itself, it was not a negative datum added at the end.

Perception is tied to financial value

If perception alters the experience, the question that matters to a director remains: does this reach the balance sheet.

Aaker and Jacobson controlled for macroeconomic factors and return on investment and found a positive relationship between stock return and changes in perceived quality. The perceived-quality measure contained incremental information, beyond current accounting measures, about the company's future performance (Aaker & Jacobson, 1994, Journal of Marketing Research).

The direct step to the shareholder came from Madden, Fehle and Fournier. With the Fama-French portfolio methodology and a market measure of the financial value of the brand, they showed that strong brands deliver returns superior to a relevant benchmark and with less risk, and that the conclusion holds controlling for market share and firm size (Madden, Fehle & Fournier, 2006, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science).

The brand also affects the denominator of risk. Rego, Billett and Morgan analysed 252 companies and concluded that consumer-based brand equity is associated with lower firm risk, and that it explains variance in risk measures beyond existing financial models, with a stronger effect on firm-specific risk (Rego, Billett & Morgan, 2009, Journal of Marketing; data from 2000 to 2006).

The right proportion matters, and the evidence provides it with humility. Edeling and Fischer's meta-analysis gathered 488 elasticities from 83 studies, across four decades and four continents. The average elasticity of marketing assets was 0.54, well above advertising alone, at 0.04. Within the assets, however, the customer weighed more, around 0.72, than the brand, around 0.33. Asset elasticities were larger in recession (Edeling & Fischer, 2016, Journal of Marketing Research).

There is a theoretical framework that explains the why. Srivastava, Shervani and Fahey proposed that market-based assets increase shareholder value in four ways: they accelerate cash flows, increase them, reduce their volatility and vulnerability, and raise the residual value of the business (Srivastava, Shervani & Fahey, 1998, Journal of Marketing). And Srinivasan and Hanssens's review synthesised the field, explicitly covering brand equity among the paths by which marketing creates value for the firm (Srinivasan & Hanssens, 2009, Journal of Marketing Research).

As a backdrop, and only that, the value of companies migrated from the physical to the intangible. Ocean Tomo's IAMV study estimates that intangibles represent about 92% of the market value of the S&P 500 in 2025, against 17% in 1975.

How that value is built: mental availability and distinction

Knowing the brand is an asset does not say how it is built. The Ehrenberg-Bass school gives the operational answer.

Romaniuk and Sharp redefined brand salience beyond being "top of mind": it is the brand's propensity to be noticed or come to mind in buying situations, reflecting the quantity and quality of the network of memory structures of the buyer (Romaniuk & Sharp, 2004, Marketing Theory). And Romaniuk modelled that network: the more associations the brand has, the more likely it is to be chosen, and the size of the associative network aligns with the size of the brand in the market (Romaniuk, 2013, Journal of Business Research).

Advertising feeds that availability. Vaughan, Corsi, Beal and Sharp found that mental availability is higher among those aware of the brand's advertising, both users and non-users, with a larger effect among non-users (Vaughan and colleagues, 2021, International Journal of Market Research).

There is an empirical law beneath all of this. Double Jeopardy: lower-share brands are penalised twice, they have far fewer buyers and slightly lower loyalty (Ehrenberg, Goodhardt & Barwise, 1990, Journal of Marketing, on an observation by McPhee, 1963). The corollary is harsh for those who sell dreams of "loyal customers": growth comes mainly from increasing penetration, from being chosen by more people, not from deepening a small core.

And there is the way to make the brand recognisable without being confused with the others. Romaniuk proposes measuring each distinctive asset by Fame, how many associate it with the brand, and Uniqueness, with what exclusivity, without confusion with competitors (Romaniuk, 2018, Building Distinctive Brand Assets, Oxford University Press). To be bought, the brand has to come to mind in buying situations, the Category Entry Points, and larger brands link to more of those situations (Romaniuk & Sharp, 2016, How Brands Grow Part 2, Oxford University Press).

The proven real cases

The studies give the law. The cases give the colour. They are worth less in rigour, because they are anecdotal and full of confounding factors, and so we map each one to the principle it illustrates, with the caveat in plain sight.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi, the principle that the brand reconfigures preference. It is the only case that is also peer-reviewed science, and therefore the most solid: McClure (2004) and Koenigs and Tranel (2008), already above. The label changes what the brain does, and without the region that assigns symbolic value the effect vanishes.

Liquid Death, the principle that the price premium lives in the identity when the product is indistinguishable. It is canned water, founded in 2018 by Mike Cessario. It was valued at 1.4 billion dollars in a round of 67 million in March 2024, double the 700 million of October 2022, and recorded 263 million dollars in retail sales in 2023, across 113 thousand points of sale (BusinessWire, Retail Dive).

Apple, the principle that perception sustains margins over time. In fiscal year 2024, total gross margin was 46.2%, with products around 37% (Apple Inc., Form 10-K, fiscal year 2024, filed with the SEC), above the usual hardware-sector benchmark.

Red Bull, the principle that the value is in the method, not the liquid. Founded by Dietrich Mateschitz in 1987, with a single product adapted from a Thai drink, it built presence through documented tactics: student brand managers, free sampling and the appropriation of extreme sports, with its own events and sponsored athletes.

Tesla, the principle that a strong brand can grow with little traditional advertising. For more than a decade, until around 2023, Tesla invested practically nothing in traditional advertising, relying on the product, on word of mouth and on the founder. We place it last on purpose, because it is the most fragile of the five.

The reflection on the future

Where will your company be 5 years from now?

All the prior evidence converges on a decision that is taken today and paid for years from now.

To build a brand is to buy an option on the future. You pay a cost now for a right that only yields later, and whose value grows with the horizon. Activation, the immediate-response ads, the promotion, the discount, harvests demand that already exists. Brand building plants memory in those who are not yet buying, but will be. The company that spends only on activation is harvesting a field it never sows.

The science of effectiveness shows this with numbers. Binet and Field analysed 996 effectiveness cases entered between 1980 and 2010, covering about 700 brands and 83 sectors. Activation produces short sales spikes, which decay. Brand building produces a slower but durable effect, which accumulates. Brand-building campaigns, more emotional in nature, are about twice as likely to generate sustained profit growth than the purely rational ones. The balance that maximises the number of business effects is around 60% in brand building and 40% in activation, reaffirmed in 2017 (Binet & Field, The Long and the Short of It, IPA, 2013; Media in Focus, IPA and Thinkbox, 2017). And there is an associated growth mechanism: when a brand's share of voice exceeds its share of market, it tends to grow, on the order of half a share point per year for every ten points of excess. Awareness and creative quality materially amplify that efficiency.

There is, however, causal proof, and it is peer-reviewed. Lodish and colleagues ran 55 split-cable market experiments, comparing matched consumer aggregates that received different advertising weights, with one year of differentiated exposure and two years of follow-up. The conclusion, in the authors' words: when the increase in advertising weight had a significant impact in the year of the increase, in the following two years the first-year sales effect was, on average, approximately double (Lodish and colleagues, 1995, Marketing Science). The return persists well beyond the moment of the spend.

And there is the reason why this is a decision about the future, and not about the present. In many categories, most buyers are not in the market now. The 95-5 rule, from Ehrenberg-Bass with the B2B Institute, estimates that at any given moment only about 5% of potential buyers are actually in market, and about 95% are out. It derives from purchase frequency: a repurchase cycle of about five years gives about 20% per year, about 5% per quarter. The brand's role is to plant memory in the 95% who do not buy today, so that the brand is there when they enter the market (Dawes, Ehrenberg-Bass and LinkedIn B2B Institute, 2021).

Put these three facts together. Perception decides the choice. Perception compounds in memory over years. And most of your future customers have not yet decided. The conclusion is geometric: five years from now, two companies with the same product will not be worth the same. The one that built mental availability will be the one that comes to mind at the instant of decision, the default option, the one that does not need to justify its price. The other will compete on discount, every quarter, against whoever sowed in time. That distance is compounding happening.

To optimise only the present is a decision, even when it is the decision not to decide. It yields in the quarter and impoverishes on the horizon. The brand is the only asset that works while the company sleeps, and that is why we build brands that live longer than the agencies that made them.

What this study does not prove

The integrity of the method requires saying where the evidence stops, and this is what separates a conclusion from a brochure.

Most of the direct evidence is correlational, not experimental. The financial studies, from Aaker and Jacobson to Madden, Fehle and Fournier, show association, not causality, and suffer from selection bias, they measure brands that are already large. The causal pieces are narrow: Lodish is consumer packaged goods and television in the 1990s, Koenigs and Tranel has a small sample and a single category.

The most cited long-term evidence is industry evidence, not peer-reviewed. Binet and Field rest on award cases, the 95-5 rule is a heuristic that varies by category, and Ocean Tomo's 92% intangible is from a commercial source and is not 92% brand.

The brand is not the strongest intangible asset that has been measured. Edeling and Fischer found a customer elasticity higher than the brand's. We say this because it is true.

The neuroscience and experience studies prove that perception enters the experience and moves the choice, but they do not quantify economic value, and the brand effect is asymmetric, in McClure only the label with real cultural capital moved behaviour, and conditional, in Milosavljević it dominates in fast decisions and with weak preference, giving way when the preference is strong.

The brand cases are anecdotal and full of confounding factors, and we flagged them one by one. The story of the Red Bull cans is a legend, and we do not use it.

The honest thesis is this, without inflation: a genuinely built brand, perceived as distinct and of quality, becomes an asset that alters the real experience and anticipates economic value. But it has to be built, not decreed. What is the same has no authority, and none of the evidence above saves whoever chooses to be the same.

From the evidence to the method

The science above describes what decides value. What follows is how Núcleo Parceiro measures it, because a thesis without an instrument is merely an opinion with good presentation.

Strategic Listening, the first conversation before any proposal, diagnoses the three axes where perception is converted, or not, into an asset. We do not read taste. We read what the evidence has shown decides.

Cognitive. Perception forms in the first instants and biases the choice, as Willis and Todorov, Lindgaard and McClure show. We read what your brand says before the first word: whether it survives the test of the first seconds or disappears in it.

Social. The choice is tied to belonging, to proof and to mental availability. Perception enters the experience, and the brand is chosen when it comes to mind, as Romaniuk and the Ehrenberg-Bass school establish. We read the signals that tell whoever arrives that they do not decide alone, and whether your brand comes to mind in the buying situation or is confusable. What is the same has no authority, and we measure the distance at which it stands from being the same.

Organisational. Perception only holds up if the brand is coherent on every surface where it lives. We read whether the same brand appears the same and whole everywhere, or whether it falls apart between channels.

And we frame the three not by what they yield this quarter, but by what they compound years from now, because brand value is long-term, as Binet and Field, Lodish and the 95-5 rule show.

Each axis is auditable. We do not deliver an opinion, we deliver a reading with traceability: where it stands today, why it stands there, and what moves the number. It is the same difference that, throughout this study, separates a conclusion from a brochure.

Sources

All references were verified at the primary or institutional source. The page ranges and digital identifiers are those of the original publications.

Perception and rapid judgement

1. Willis, J., & Todorov, A. (2006). First Impressions: Making Up Your Mind After a 100-Ms Exposure to a Face. Psychological Science, 17(7), 592–598. Source
2. Bar, M., Neta, M., & Linz, H. (2006). Very First Impressions. Emotion, 6(2), 269–278. Source
3. Lindgaard, G., Fernandes, G., Dudek, C., & Brown, J. (2006). Attention web designers: You have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression! Behaviour & Information Technology, 25(2), 115–126. Source
4. Milosavljević, M., Navalpakkam, V., Koch, C., & Rangel, A. (2012). Relative visual saliency differences induce sizable bias in consumer choice. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22(1), 67–74. Source
5. Ambady, N., & Rosenthal, R. (1992). Thin Slices of Expressive Behavior as Predictors of Interpersonal Consequences: A Meta-Analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 111(2), 256–274. Source
6. Ambady, N., & Rosenthal, R. (1993). Half a Minute: Predicting Teacher Evaluations From Thin Slices of Nonverbal Behavior and Physical Attractiveness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(3), 431–441. Source

Brand and perception alter the experience

1. McClure, S. M., Li, J., Tomlin, D., Cypert, K. S., Montague, L. M., & Montague, P. R. (2004). Neural Correlates of Behavioral Preference for Culturally Familiar Drinks. Neuron, 44(2), 379–387. Source
2. Koenigs, M., & Tranel, D. (2008). Prefrontal cortex damage abolishes brand-cued changes in cola preference. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 3(1), 1–6. Source
3. Plassmann, H., O'Doherty, J., Shiv, B., & Rangel, A. (2008). Marketing actions can modulate neural representations of experienced pleasantness. PNAS, 105(3), 1050–1054. Source
4. Allison, R. I., & Uhl, K. P. (1964). Influence of Beer Brand Identification on Taste Perception. Journal of Marketing Research, 1(3), 36–39. Source
5. Lee, L., Frederick, S., & Ariely, D. (2006). Try It, You'll Like It: The Influence of Expectation, Consumption, and Revelation on Preferences for Beer. Psychological Science, 17(12), 1054–1058. Source

Perception and financial / long-term value

1. Aaker, D. A., & Jacobson, R. (1994). The Financial Information Content of Perceived Quality. Journal of Marketing Research, 31(2), 191–201. Source
2. Madden, T. J., Fehle, F., & Fournier, S. (2006). Brands Matter: An Empirical Demonstration of the Creation of Shareholder Value Through Branding. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 34(2), 224–235. Source
3. Edeling, A., & Fischer, M. (2016). Marketing's Impact on Firm Value: Generalizations from a Meta-Analysis. Journal of Marketing Research, 53(4), 515–534. Source
4. Rego, L. L., Billett, M. T., & Morgan, N. A. (2009). Consumer-Based Brand Equity and Firm Risk. Journal of Marketing, 73(6), 47–60. Source
5. Srivastava, R. K., Shervani, T. A., & Fahey, L. (1998). Market-Based Assets and Shareholder Value: A Framework for Analysis. Journal of Marketing, 62(1), 2–18. Source
6. Srinivasan, S., & Hanssens, D. M. (2009). Marketing and Firm Value: Metrics, Methods, Findings, and Future Directions. Journal of Marketing Research, 46(3), 293–312. Source
7. Ocean Tomo (J.S. Held). (2025). Intangible Asset Market Value (IAMV) Study. Source · Press release: Source

Mental availability and distinction

1. Romaniuk, J., & Sharp, B. (2004). Conceptualizing and measuring brand salience. Marketing Theory, 4(4), 327–342. Source
2. Romaniuk, J. (2013). Modeling mental market share. Journal of Business Research, 66(2), 188–195. Source
3. Vaughan, K., Corsi, A. M., Beal, V., & Sharp, B. (2021). Measuring advertising's effect on mental availability. International Journal of Market Research, 63(5). Source
4. Ehrenberg, A. S. C., Goodhardt, G. J., & Barwise, T. P. (1990). Double Jeopardy Revisited. Journal of Marketing, 54(3), 82–91. Source
5. Romaniuk, J. (2018). Building Distinctive Brand Assets. Oxford University Press. Source
6. Romaniuk, J., & Sharp, B. (2016). How Brands Grow Part 2. Oxford University Press. Source

Short term, long term and the reflection on the future

1. Binet, L., & Field, P. (2013). The Long and the Short of It: Balancing Short and Long-Term Marketing Strategies. IPA. Source
2. Binet, L., & Field, P. (2017). Media in Focus: Marketing Effectiveness in the Digital Era. IPA and Thinkbox. Source
3. Lodish, L. M., Abraham, M. M., et al. (1995). A Summary of Fifty-Five In-Market Experimental Estimates of the Long-Term Effect of TV Advertising. Marketing Science, 14(3, Part 2), G133–G140. Source
4. Dawes, J. (2021). The 95-5 Rule. Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and LinkedIn B2B Institute. Source · Source

Documented cases

1. Liquid Death. Funding round and valuation: BusinessWire (10 March 2024), Source · Retail Dive, Source
2. Apple Inc. (2024). Form 10-K, fiscal year 2024. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Source