What makes Kraft so cool is the long term dominance its brands have commanded in the marketplace, their effect on overall financial return, and their role in driving long term strategy for the company.

Kraft’s brand focus exemplifies our conclusion that the most valuable assets on a balance sheet often don’t even appear on the balance sheet-a company’s brands. Brand equity, sometimes measured by the excess of a firm’s market capitalization over its net worth, represents a long term investment in market share, wallet share, and heart share.

And as the legendary bands featured in this article show, the greater the heart share or emotional connection between fan and brand, the more likely that brand is to be adopted into consumers’ lives.

The ultimate cheese and cracker combo was born in the merger of Kraft and Nabisco to reign as the largest branded food and beverage company in North America, with revenues of nearly $30 billion.

Kraft brought the world’s number one brand of cheese, along with leading brands of salad dressings, packaged dinners, barbecue sauce, and other products to the table, while Nabisco brought with it the world’s leading cookie and cracker brands. The marriage, which is expected to result in cost savings of $600 million a year by 2004, transcends languages, permeates cultures, and sells in 150 nations around the globe.

Promoting Individual Identities: Marketing One Collective Brand Many brands featured in this article are single brands, firms whose corporate identity is closely tied to one brand. Unlike JetBlue, WalMart, and Madonna, however, Kraft is a family of brands that holds the number one share position in 21 of 25 product categories in the United States and internationally. The company owns over brands that, according to Nielson data, are so culturally relevant that at least one can be found in 99 percent of U.S. households at any given time.

Just as the Grateful Dead has done with its legions of Deadheads, successful brands reach beyond the minds of consumers and into their hearts. Building a brand on the key values of its customers causes them to connect with the brand at an emotional level, much more than just a cognitive level, evoking strong responses and connections that differentiate customers from fans. Fans feel, perhaps without knowing why, “This is my brand.” When this happens on an individual basis, an extrasensory connection is made; and when it happens en masse, cultural adoption occurs.

Attending a rock concert is a valuable way for marketers to experience firsthand the role that emotional connection plays in acceptance of a product-in this case a band or a particular song. Fans like the familiar-if they know a song, they often sing along or at least dance a bit more fervently than they otherwise might. Even during a Paul McCartney concert, fans will sing and dance to the Wings and Beatles songs they know, and head for the restrooms when he announces that the next five songs are from a new CD. Bands know this happens, but they continue to perform the new material for the obvious reason of selling new CDs. But they perform the new material for less obvious reasons as well-to give fans an emotional and memorable experience to connect to the new song, thereby reinforcing relationships with fans, increasing the likelihood of continued cultural adoption, and increasing their longevity in the market. Had Borden followed this strategy in the 1960s or 1970s when the association between Cracker Jack and baseball was ingrained in the American culture, it might have been able to extend the brand and build other Borden brands by piggybacking on the relationship of generations of consumers to the Cracker Jack brand.