Know-How Exchange : Branding

You can go through an elaborate calculation based on assumptions, or you can simply say that there is no way to quantify an ROI for this kind of long-term marketing effort.

If you are determined to do the calculation, you'll need to estimate how many exposures a person needs to become truly aware of the brand. Then you'll need to estimate the conversion rate of aware individuals. And you'll need some approximation of the frequency of purchase, average profit per sale, and loyalty factor.

When you've finished the exercise you'll find that the variability in your estimates is far greater than the value you've computed. You'll have your ROI, but it will be useless for real decision-making.

This is a question that's been around for a long time, and the answer hasn't changed much.

As mgoodman said - it is very difficult to determine the ROI of brand building activities. Few do it.

there are market research companies that can research brand awareness. You could do this brand awareness research before the event and after, to determine how the event has impacted the awareness of the brand. But this still doesn't easily calculate to a ROI, and is expensive to do.