Between Form without Substance and Substance without Form: Estimating the Brand Image of Romanian Smes

The recent financial and economic crisis assessment of brand image depends crucially on the choice of underlying assumptions and analytical tool and is subject to considerable uncertainty. Many countries pass from economy based on intangible resources and innovation, competitiveness, and economic dynamism to digital economy. The good brand image of a company can be destroyed in a matter of minutes on the Internet by anyone, even a competitor. The rules relating to brand image accounting, measurement and reporting represent an excellent case in point, traditionally dominated by capitalization and harmonization of the regime having been disposed by international accounting standard in favour of an impairment testing regime pursuant to which periodic harmonization charges are no longer required. The paper’s main purpose is to discuss according to the transition to IFRS the answer to the follow questions: Is branding image evaluation a myth? Can any of the existent brand image evaluation models generate comparison between knowledge-based organizations? In a time of economic crisis, we decided to use an econometric model that allows assessing the implications of brand image, with examples on Romanian SMEs. Results revealed the problems concerning brand image recognition and valuation of the brand image in crisis period.