Marketing research offers no single formula for making an iconic brand: it describes several mechanisms, complementary or competing. The most studied are brand value based on awareness and associations (Aaker 1991, Keller 1993), brand love (Carroll and Ahuvia 2006, Batra and colleagues 2012), cultural myth (Holt 2004), distinctiveness and mental availability (Sharp 2010), status and scarcity signals, and the consistency of logos and colors. Each study has its method and its limits, listed in the table below. The Interbrand (2025 edition) and Kantar BrandZ (2026 edition) rankings measure financial value, not icon status.
At a glance
- Vocabulary: the articles cited speak of brand equity, brand love or the iconic brand.
- Brand value: Aaker (1991) describes five assets; Keller (1993) defines it by the effect of brand knowledge on the consumer’s response.
- Attachment: Batra, Ahuvia and Bagozzi (2012) identify seven elements of brand love; Carroll and Ahuvia (2006) link it to loyalty and word of mouth.
- Central disagreement: Romaniuk, Sharp and Ehrenberg (2007) put distinctiveness at the center; Kantar measures a brand’s contribution with the Meaningful, Different, Salient framework.
- Rankings: Interbrand 2025 puts Louis Vuitton 12th, Hermès 21st, Nike 23rd and Chanel 24th; Kantar 2026 puts Hermès ahead of Louis Vuitton and Zara ahead of Nike.
- Limits: the studies rely on surveys, experiments, case studies or statistical models; the table states what each one measured.
Ten landmark studies at a glance
Table: concept, authors, year, measurement and limits
Each row states what the study measured and its limits, based on the publisher’s or journal’s page opened on October 23, 2026. When the article is paywalled, only the publisher’s abstract is cited.
| Concept | Authors, year, journal | What was measured | Limits | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-based brand equity | Keller, 1993, Journal of Marketing | Conceptual model: brand knowledge (awareness, associations) changes the consumer’s response to marketing, compared with a fictitious version of the product. | Theoretical model, with ideas for measurement (publisher’s abstract). | Sage |
| Brand assets | Aaker, 1991, Free Press | Five assets: associations, perceived quality, name awareness, customer base, proprietary resources (patents, trademarks, distribution). | Management framework illustrated with company cases (Ivory, Datsun becoming Nissan, Schlitz, Ford Taurus). | Simon & Schuster |
| Brand love (survey) | Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006, Marketing Letters | Survey of satisfied consumers: love is stronger for brands in hedonic categories and with symbolic benefits, and linked to more loyalty and word of mouth. | Questionnaire, so associations between answers. | Springer |
| Brand love (elements) | Batra, Ahuvia and Bagozzi, 2012, Journal of Marketing | Two qualitative studies, then modeling on survey data: seven elements (self-brand integration, passion-driven behaviors, emotional connection, long-term relationship, positive attitude, certainty, anticipated separation distress). | Self-reported data; samples not given in the abstract. | Sage |
| Identity myth | Holt, 2004, Harvard Business Review Press; Holt, 2003, Harvard Business Review | Historical analyses of American brands (ESPN, Mountain Dew, Volkswagen, Budweiser, Harley-Davidson): “identity myths” soothe anxieties born of social change. | Case studies of brands that were already iconic. According to Holt, until his book, successful icons had emerged more from intuition and serendipity than from method. | Book, HBR |
| Brand community | Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001, Journal of Consumer Research | Ethnography and online data on Ford Bronco, Macintosh and Saab: shared consciousness, rituals and traditions, moral responsibility. | Three brands, qualitative method. | OUP |
| The underdog story | Paharia, Keinan, Avery and Schor, 2011, Journal of Consumer Research | Four studies: a story of disadvantage and determination can increase purchase intentions, real choice and loyalty, through identification with the brand. | Stronger among people who see themselves as underdogs, for purchases for oneself, and in cultures where this story is part of the national identity. | OUP |
| Brands and religiosity | Shachar, Erdem, Cutright and Fitzsimons, 2011, Marketing Science | U.S. state-level data and experiments: religiosity is negatively related to the preference for branded products (substitution hypothesis). | Only in self-expression categories (clothes, for example). | INFORMS |
| Distinctiveness, mental availability | Sharp, 2010, Oxford University Press; Romaniuk and Sharp, 2004, Marketing Theory; Romaniuk, Sharp and Ehrenberg, 2007, Australasian Marketing Journal | Little perceived differentiation between competing brands, across many categories and two countries, yet they sell. Salience is a brand’s propensity to be noticed or to come to mind in buying situations. | Contested (see below). The abstracts read do not detail the categories. | OUP, Sage, Sage |
| Status signals | Han, Nunes and Drèze, 2010, Journal of Marketing; Berger and Ward, 2010, and Bellezza, Gino and Keinan, 2014, Journal of Consumer Research | Visible or discreet logos depending on wealth and need for status (Han); insiders’ preference for subtle signs (Berger); status attributed to nonconforming behavior, such as red sneakers (Bellezza). | In Bellezza et al., the effect disappears if the observer does not know the setting or if the behavior looks unintentional. | Sage, OUP, OUP |
| Scarcity | Worchel, Lee and Adewole, 1975, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology; Lynn, 1991, Psychology & Marketing; Kapferer and Valette-Florence, 2016, Journal of Product & Brand Management | Two experiments with 200 female undergraduates (scarce or abundant cookies); a meta-analysis of commodity theory; a survey of 1,286 luxury buyers about 12 brands. | Laboratory and cookies; Lynn’s abstract gives no effect size; for luxury, physical rarity alone does not explain desire. | APA, Wiley, Emerald |
| Logos and colors | Henderson and Cote, 1998, Journal of Marketing; Janiszewski and Meyvis, 2001, Journal of Consumer Research; Labrecque and Milne, 2012, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science; Luffarelli, Mukesh and Mahmood, 2019, Journal of Marketing Research | 195 logos on 13 characteristics; complexity and repetition versus processing fluency; four studies on colors and brand personality; six studies and 597 logos on descriptive logos. | Perceptions and judgments in study settings. The effect of descriptive logos is much weaker for familiar brands. | Sage, OUP, Springer, Sage |
Three disagreements in the literature
For the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, mental availability means that buyers easily think of the brand when buying and recognize it quickly (definitions). Romaniuk (2018) devotes a book to building and managing a brand’s identity through distinctive assets (Oxford University Press).
Differentiation or distinctiveness
Romaniuk, Sharp and Ehrenberg (2007) find little perceived differentiation between competing brands, which sell anyway, and put distinctiveness at the center: a brand builds unique associations that make it easier to identify (publisher’s abstract). Kantar’s framework, for its part, keeps a criterion of difference (Different) alongside meaning (Meaningful) and salience (Salient) (BrandZ method).
Sharp’s “laws”
According to its publisher, Sharp’s book (2010) presents “laws” that hold across varied conditions, periods and countries (Oxford University Press). Ehrenberg, Goodhardt and Barwise (1990) describe “double jeopardy”: a small brand has far fewer buyers, who buy less often (Sage). Yet Fader and Schmittlein (1993) observe, across many markets in Japan and the United States, that high-share brands have more loyalty than the Dirichlet model predicts (Sage). Mark Ritson argues in Marketing Week (August 16, 2018) that brand perceptions do influence sales, against Sharp; only the start of his column is public, so we do not summarize his argument (Marketing Week).
The case of luxury
Kapferer and Valette-Florence (2016) ask how luxury brands can grow without diluting their desirability. Across 1,286 luxury buyers and 12 brands, they find eight levers beyond physical rarity and quality, grouped into two paths, selection and seduction (Emerald). The revised edition of How Brands Grow 2 (2021) says in its subtitle that it includes luxury brands (Oxford University Press): we have not read its conclusions on this point.
Fashion brand rankings: Interbrand 2025 and Kantar BrandZ 2026
Here are the fashion and luxury brands in the Interbrand Best Global Brands top 100, 2025 edition, published in October 2025 (ranking; B&T, October 17, 2025). Interbrand announces the 2026 edition for October 28, 2026 (announcement), so this table is the most recent as of October 23, 2026.
| Brand | Interbrand 2025 rank | Brand value (billions of dollars) | Change over one year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Louis Vuitton | 12 | 48.4 | -4.9% |
| Hermès | 21 | 40.9 | +17.8% |
| Nike | 23 | 33.7 | -25.9% |
| Chanel | 24 | 30.5 | -8.3% |
| Zara | 41 | 19.4 | +9.1% |
| UNIQLO | 47 | 17.7 | new entry |
| adidas | 49 | 17.4 | +12.4% |
| H&M | 68 | 11.9 | -12.7% |
| Gucci | 69 | 11.6 | -35.0% |
| Cartier | 73 | 11.2 | +5.4% |
| Dior | 83 | 9.3 | -10.1% |
| Prada | 86 | 9.0 | +8.4% |
Interbrand’s method combines the economic profit of branded products, the role of brand index (the share of the purchase decision attributable to the brand) and a brand strength score from 0 to 100 across ten factors, including distinctiveness, coherence and presence (method document, © 2017).
Kantar BrandZ 2026 (21st edition, July 13, 2026) puts Hermès ahead of Louis Vuitton for luxury and Zara ahead of Nike for apparel. Louis Vuitton and Chanel are the only two European brands in the top 100 whose value fell (Kantar). Its method multiplies a financial value by a brand contribution, measured with the Meaningful, Different, Salient framework, based on more than 4.6 million interviews in 54 markets (method).
These rankings measure a financial value, not icon status, and differ in year and method: Louis Vuitton ranks ahead of Hermès at Interbrand in 2025 and behind it at Kantar in 2026. Burberry, Ralph Lauren and Moncler do not appear in the 2025 top 100; Interbrand states that its inclusion criteria exclude some well-known brands, without naming them on the page consulted (criteria).
What you can take from it for a clothing brand
- Choose a few recognizable signs (logo, color, shape) and repeat them: Romaniuk (2018) offers a framework for building these distinctive assets, and, according to Janiszewski and Meyvis (2001), the effect of repeating a logo on processing fluency depends on its complexity and on the spacing of exposures.
- Decide whether your signs should be visible or discreet: Han, Nunes and Drèze (2010) and Berger and Ward (2010) show that preference varies with the audience you target.
- An origin story built on determination can strengthen identification with the brand, especially among customers who see themselves in it (Paharia and colleagues, 2011).
- Do not bet on scarcity alone: Worchel and colleagues’ (1975) experiment is about cookies, and Kapferer and Valette-Florence (2016) describe other levers of desire for luxury.
What the research does not say
Each study covers one mechanism with its own method. In the abstracts read, none tests all the mechanisms at once. The idea that a brand is a quasi-religion is also narrower than its image: Shachar and colleagues (2011) link low religiosity to a preference for branded products, only in self-expression categories such as clothes (INFORMS). Only published, verifiable work is cited, with its disagreements. Sample sizes and effect sizes that the abstracts do not give are not reported.
Resources for building a visual identity
Are you launching a brand and looking for files to draw a logo or present your clothes? These files help. They have no link with the studies or the brands cited in this article.
- +130 Formes Abstraites Vectorisés pour Logos [BY ZÜLI] : 130 abstract shapes for logos, as PNG and vector files.
- +50 ULTIMATE MOCKUP BRAND PACK : more than 50 3D model mockups and flat-lay packshots, compatible with Adobe Photoshop and Procreate; the models are 3D creations, not real people.
- +10 TEE SHIRT MOCKUPS (17 EN TOUT) : 17 T-shirt mockups as PSD and PNG on a transparent background.
All HYTRAPE visual identity resources.
Frequently asked questions
What makes a brand iconic, according to research?
No study gives a single formula. The work describes several mechanisms: awareness and associations (Keller, Aaker), emotional attachment (Batra and colleagues), cultural myth (Holt), distinctiveness (Sharp, Romaniuk), status and scarcity signals, and the consistency of visual signs.
What is brand equity?
For Keller (1993), it is the effect of brand knowledge on the consumer’s response to its marketing, compared with the response to a fictitious or unnamed version of the product. For Aaker (1991), brand equity brings together five assets: associations, perceived quality, name awareness, customer base and proprietary resources.
What is brand love?
It is the passionate attachment of satisfied consumers to a brand (Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006). Batra, Ahuvia and Bagozzi (2012) distinguish seven elements in it, including self-brand integration, passion-driven behaviors and anticipated separation distress.
What is mental availability?
According to the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, it means buyers easily think of the brand when buying and recognize it quickly. Romaniuk and Sharp (2004) speak of salience: a brand’s propensity to be noticed or to come to mind in buying situations.
Does scarcity make a brand more desirable?
In Worchel and colleagues’ (1975) experiment, scarce cookies were rated more desirable than abundant ones. For luxury, Kapferer and Valette-Florence (2016) describe eight levers beyond physical rarity and quality that sustain desire as the brand grows.
What is the difference between Interbrand and Kantar BrandZ?
Interbrand combines economic profit, the role of the brand in the purchase and a brand strength score across ten factors. Kantar multiplies a financial value by a brand contribution measured with the Meaningful, Different, Salient framework. Both publish a dollar value.
Which fashion brands rank highest?
At Interbrand (2025), Louis Vuitton is 12th, Hermès 21st, Nike 23rd and Chanel 24th. At Kantar (2026), Hermès ranks ahead of Louis Vuitton for luxury and Zara ahead of Nike for apparel. The two rankings differ in year and method.
Read next
- Fashion and identity: how clothes express who we are
- Kering and Gucci: results, directors and strategy
- Stone Island history: from Massimo Osti to Moncler (1982-2026)
- Supreme: EssilorLuxottica buys the cult brand for 1.5 billion dollars
Sources
- Keller (1993), Journal of Marketing 57(1) : page de l’éditeur (Sage), consultée le 23 octobre 2026
- Aaker (1991), Managing Brand Equity : page de l’éditeur (Simon & Schuster)
- Carroll et Ahuvia (2006), Marketing Letters 17(2) : page de l’éditeur (Springer)
- Batra, Ahuvia et Bagozzi (2012), Journal of Marketing 76(2) : page de l’éditeur (Sage)
- Holt (2003), Harvard Business Review, mars 2003 : page de la revue
- Holt (2004), How Brands Become Icons : fiche du livre avec le texte de l’éditeur (Harvard Business Review Press), O’Reilly
- Muniz et O’Guinn (2001), Journal of Consumer Research 27(4) : page de l’éditeur (Oxford University Press)
- Paharia, Keinan, Avery et Schor (2011), Journal of Consumer Research 37(5) : page de l’éditeur (Oxford University Press)
- Shachar, Erdem, Cutright et Fitzsimons (2011), Marketing Science 30(1) : page de l’éditeur (INFORMS)
- Sharp (2010), How Brands Grow : page de l’éditeur (Oxford University Press)
- Romaniuk et Sharp, How Brands Grow 2, édition révisée (2021) : page de l’éditeur (Oxford University Press)
- Romaniuk (2018), Building Distinctive Brand Assets : page de l’éditeur (Oxford University Press)
- Romaniuk et Sharp (2004), Marketing Theory 4(4) : page de l’éditeur (Sage)
- Romaniuk, Sharp et Ehrenberg (2007), Australasian Marketing Journal 15(2) : page de l’éditeur (Sage)
- Ehrenberg-Bass Institute : définitions de la disponibilité mentale et physique
- Ehrenberg, Goodhardt et Barwise (1990), Journal of Marketing 54(3) : page de l’éditeur (Sage)
- Fader et Schmittlein (1993), Journal of Marketing Research 30(4) : page de l’éditeur (Sage)
- Marketing Week, chronique de Mark Ritson du 16 août 2018 (seul le début est public)
- Kapferer et Valette-Florence (2016), Journal of Product & Brand Management 25(2) : page de l’éditeur (Emerald)
- Worchel, Lee et Adewole (1975), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32(5) : fiche APA PsycNet
- Lynn (1991), Psychology & Marketing 8(1) : page de l’éditeur (Wiley)
- Han, Nunes et Drèze (2010), Journal of Marketing 74(4) : page de l’éditeur (Sage)
- Berger et Ward (2010), Journal of Consumer Research 37(4) : page de l’éditeur (Oxford University Press)
- Bellezza, Gino et Keinan (2014), Journal of Consumer Research 41(1) : page de l’éditeur (Oxford University Press)
- Henderson et Cote (1998), Journal of Marketing 62(2) : page de l’éditeur (Sage)
- Janiszewski et Meyvis (2001), Journal of Consumer Research 28(1) : page de l’éditeur (Oxford University Press)
- Labrecque et Milne (2012), Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 40(5) : page de l’éditeur (Springer)
- Luffarelli, Mukesh et Mahmood (2019), Journal of Marketing Research 56(5) : page de l’éditeur (Sage)
- Interbrand, Best Global Brands 2025 : classement (consulté le 23 octobre 2026)
- Interbrand, Best Global Brands : critères d’inclusion et lien vers la méthode (consultée le 23 octobre 2026)
- Interbrand, Best Global Brands 2026 : annonce de la publication le 28 octobre (consultée le 23 octobre 2026)
- Interbrand, document « Brand Valuation » (méthode, © 2017)
- B&T, Best Global Brands 2025 d’Interbrand (17 octobre 2025)
- Kantar, BrandZ Most Valuable Global Brands 2026 (13 juillet 2026)
- Kantar, méthode de valorisation BrandZ (consultée le 23 octobre 2026)
Updated October 23, 2026. Rankings: Interbrand Best Global Brands 2025 (the 2026 edition is announced for October 28, 2026) and Kantar BrandZ 2026.
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