To end short-term brand management. In the mid-1990s, Davis was a partner at the consulting firm Kuczmarski & Associates. Its study "Brand Asset Management for the 1990s" looked at how nearly 50 companies managed their brands (Davis, 1995, pp. 65, 67, 82). The findings pointed to "serious mismanagement of the brand and short-term focus on the brand" (Davis, 1995, p. 65). Only 63 percent of the companies had a formal long-term brand strategy (Davis, 1995, p. 73). Davis calls the old way of managing brands the classical model. In it, the marketing department ran brand building, and its tactics were designed to "maximize awareness and drive short-term sales". Short-term moves such as yearly price increases almost always damage the brand (Davis, 2002a, p. 354).

To manage the brand like any other asset. An asset is something a company owns and whose value it tries to increase over time. A brand is an image in the minds of consumers. In 1995, Davis noted that "these two definitions have never been married together" (Davis, 1995, p. 65). His approach marries the two. For him, a brand "is as much of a business asset as employees, equipment or capital" and deserves the same care (Davis, 2002a, p. 351). Like other assets, brands have a financial value that can be measured. Each year, the firm Interbrand ranks the world's most valuable brands. In 2001, it valued Coca-Cola at 68 billion dollars, 45 percent of the company's total market value. For Davis, such valuations "make a strong argument for managing and leveraging brands as assets". And because "what is not measured is not managed", companies that find no way to measure the brand "will forever chase short-term sales and cut costs" (Davis, 2002a, pp. 353, 355).

To make the brand the business of the whole company. When firms launch a major brand project, they often focus on new logos, advertising jingles and taglines. In Davis's words, "they are missing the boat" (Davis, 2002b, p. 503). For him, a brand is "a set of expectations and associations evoked from experience with a company or product". Put simply, it is how customers, employees and shareholders experience what a company does. A brand is therefore built "through the customer's entire experience, not just marketing or advertising alone" (Davis, 2002b, p. 503). Each contact a customer has with the company, good or bad, adds to the brand. Davis calls these contacts touchpoints (Davis, 2000, p. 5). This is why he sees the brand's value as a task for the chief executive and the senior leadership team, not for marketing alone (Davis, 2002a, p. 354).

The model rests on one idea. The brand is a business asset, so it should be built, invested in and measured like one. Davis defines Brand Asset Management as "a balanced, organization-wide approach for building the meaning of the brand". It also means communicating the brand inside and outside the company and using it so that the brand earns more and is worth more over time (Davis, 2002b, p. 503). Davis turns this idea into eleven steps in four phases. The company first develops a brand vision, then determines the BrandPicture, next develops a brand asset management strategy and finally supports a brand asset management culture (Davis, 2002b, pp. 504–511). Five principles hold the phases together.

• Inside first, then outside: the brand vision is "the only step driven entirely by internal management interviews and discussions" (Davis, 2002b, p. 504). The BrandPicture that follows is "externally driven". It shows the brand through the customers' eyes and compares it with its competitors (Davis, 2002b, p. 505). For Davis, a brand's goals are "two-way". They cover what the company wants the brand to be and what customers want it to deliver (Davis, 2002b, p. 506).
• Strategy bridges the two: phase three looks for strategies that serve both the goals of the brand vision and the market's view captured in the BrandPicture. It uses classic marketing tools such as positioning, pricing and sales channels, "but with a more strategic, brand-oriented focus" (Davis, 2002b, p. 507). Positioning decides what place the brand should hold in customers' minds and how it should stand apart from its competitors (Davis, 2000, p. 4; 2002b, p. 507).
• Up the pyramid: the brand value pyramid in the figure shows where a brand's value lies. At the base are attributes, the features a product must show to customers. They are the easiest to deliver but also the least meaningful and the easiest to copy. In the middle are functional benefits, what the product does for customers. At the top are emotional and self-expressive benefits, the feelings a brand gives and what it lets customers say about themselves. They are the most meaningful and the hardest to copy, but also the hardest to deliver. A brand that is managed as an asset moves what customers associate with it up the pyramid over time. This allows it to charge a premium, a higher price than competing offers (Davis, 2002b, pp. 505–506).
• Every decision checked against the brand: later steps look back at earlier ones. One example is the brand extension, which carries the brand into new products or markets. It must fit the brand vision, the BrandPicture and the positioning (Davis, 2002b, p. 508). In every department, strategic decisions "should begin with whether actions under consideration are consistent with the brand positioning" (Davis, 2002b, p. 511).
• Back inside the company: phase four, "the one most often neglected", turns back to the organisation. It builds a structure that keeps everyone focused on a consistent brand experience. It measures the return on brand investment, what the brand gives back for the money spent on it, and makes the brand part of everyday decisions (Davis, 2002b, pp. 510–511).

In 1995, Davis presented Brand Asset Management as a process of four steps. First, management drew a BrandPicture, its internal picture of where the brand should be in five years. A BrandPersona then captured how consumers saw the brand. A BrandLIFE strategy set out how to close the gap between the two. Finally, the Return on Brand Initiatives (ROBI) measured what the money invested in the brand brought back (Davis, 1995, pp. 66, 74, 76). In the 2002 version, the internal picture has become the brand vision, and the name BrandPicture now stands for the external snapshot (Davis, 2002b, pp. 504–505). Both 2002 articles are based on Davis's book Brand Asset Management, published in 2000 (Davis, 2000, p. 4; 2002a, p. 351; 2002b, p. 511). The book version, as reproduced by Montalvo-Arroyave et al. (2022, p. 180), differs in phase two. It adds a brand contract as step three, moves the customer model to step four and has no separate step for the external environment. Davis (2000, pp. 7–8) names the brand contract next to the brand image but does not define it.

Davis presents the eleven steps as a "proven" approach (Davis, 2002b, p. 504). He was managing partner of the Chicago office of Prophet, a strategy consulting firm, where the approach is called Brand Asset Management (Davis, 2002b, pp. 503, 511). Everything starts with senior management. It has to back the brand and give it "a leading seat at the strategy table" (Davis, 2002b, p. 503). One simple question helps to win this support: "What are all of the ways that one of our customers or potential customers can form an impression of our brand, our company or our products/services?" Once managers have faced this question, they should all agree that the brand must play a driving role in almost every part of the business. The company's performance goals should then be tied to the performance of the brand (Davis, 2002b, p. 504).

The brand vision comes from interviews and discussions with management (Davis, 2002b, p. 504). The BrandPicture comes from customer research. Customers are asked about the brand's strengths and weaknesses, what kind of person they would expect to use it and which animal best describes it (Davis, 2002b, p. 506). Davis also asks the company's own managers to rate their brand against competitors as if they were customers. This makes them think like customers and shows where their view differs from the market's (Davis, 2000, p. 7). Staff in customer service, call centres and sales can keep the customer model up to date day by day (Davis, 2000, p. 9).

In the 1995 version, a dedicated team runs all steps, with members from senior management, marketing, market research, finance and sales (Davis, 1995, pp. 74–75). In 2002, Davis adds that some companies appoint a chief branding officer or a steering committee with members from several departments to spread the brand culture through the company (Davis, 2002b, p. 511).

Davis points to five mistakes he sees in practice (Davis, 2000, pp. 5, 6, 9; 2002a, p. 354; 2002b, pp. 503, 510):

• Mistaking the logo for the brand: firms often start a brand project with new logos, jingles and taglines (Davis, 2002b, p. 503). For Davis, taglines, symbols, shapes, spokespeople and sounds are "simply examples of well-executed marketing and selling tactics" (Davis, 2000, p. 5).
• Chasing quick profits at the brand's expense: in the early 1990s, Kraft raised cheese prices while cutting its investment in the brand. This helped private labels, the stores' own brands, to grow. Stores could offer similar cheese for much less, and customers began to ask whether Kraft cheese was still worth its price (Davis, 2002a, p. 354).
• Underrating one's own brand: "More often than not, my company's clients undervalue their brand's strengths and overvalue competitor brand strengths" (Davis, 2000, p. 6).
• Losing sight of the customer: in the early 1990s, SnackWell's was the leading low-fat snack brand. But Nabisco "stayed the course too long with its target market" and did not move to healthy snacks as much of the industry did. By 2000, the brand was "practically irrelevant" (Davis, 2000, p. 9).
• Stopping before phase four: the phase that builds measurement and culture is "the one most often neglected" (Davis, 2002b, p. 510).