Total Research Corporation: Chase Lifts Its Brand Equity With Purchase of J.P. Morgan; Chase Manhattan Buys a Better Brand.

Business Editors

PRINCETON, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 18, 2000

Chase Manhattan Corp. isn't just spending $30 billion to purchase the venerable investment banking firm of J.P. Morgan & Co.

The nation's third-biggest banking company is buying a better brand.

If Chase Manhattan executives are banking on lifting the combined entity into the top tier of financial institutions, then they are making the right acquisition, according to data compiled by Total Research Corporation (Nasdaq: TOTL), the Princeton, NJ-based international marketing research firm.

J.P. Morgan scored higher than Chase Manhattan in a comprehensive measurement of perceived brand quality among consumers in Total Research's EquiTrend(R) Online (ETOL) survey, according to Dr. Doug Berdie, President of Total Research's Strategic Brand Research Division which oversees the EquiTrend survey.

EquiTrend Online, launched in January 2000, utilizes Internet technology to obtain in-depth survey results from 30,000 Internet users 15 years and older on their perceptions of the quality of more than 1,300 brands across 16 industry groups. ETOL builds on the vast brand equity database that has been compiled over the past 12 years of surveying consumer brand perception.

The historic merging of the two storied financial institutions gives Chase Manhattan a brand lift because, according to the ETOL results, J.P. Morgan has an overall higher brand equity score than Chase Manhattan, particularly among males, consumers ages 20-49 and over 70, the more highly educated and the more affluent.

The ETOL results indicate that the management of the merged financial giant is making the right branding decision by adopting the name J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

The merger also benefits J.P. Morgan, the ETOL results indicate. The exclusive investment banking company registered its highest brand equity scores among consumers 70 years and over, indicating the firm's need to rejuvenate its customer base. While J.P. Morgan had an overall higher brand equity score, Chase Manhattan, with its more consumer oriented image, is the better-known brand among consumers.

EquiTrend and its benchmark data have proven highly predictive of consumer behavior and related corporate financial performance. EquiTrend captures brand preferences of different demographic and psychographic segments so marketers can evaluate their brands' performance among various audiences.

In EquiTrend, people are asked to score brands on a scale of 0 - 10. Total Research's extensive historical benchmarks have determined what these scores really mean: 8.00 equals World Class, 7.00 equals Good or Strong, 6.00 equals Problematic or Mediocre, and 5.00 equals Poor or Survival Level.

EquiTrend also measures a brand's "salience," which is the percentage of consumers who feel they know enough about the brand to rate it. ETOL tells brand managers how well their brands are known, and if they are getting their message across to the consumer segments they most want to reach.

EquiTrend is valuable to brand managers because the survey breaks results into 40 different segments, including gender, income, marital status, age, children in the household; education; number of Internet purchases; whether a person has a home office; race/ethnicity, among other demographic segments.

EquiTrend goes further in measuring brand equity. Total Research has created seven consumer segments that are defined by actual perceptions of brands, and which have been validated by over 12 years of EquiTrend database. Based on the brands they value, consumers can be grouped among these segments: Intellects, Conformists, Popularity Seekers, Pragmatists, Actives, Relief Seekers and Sentimentals.

By measuring a brand's perceived quality among specific segments, brand managers can chart activities to improve their brands' success. Additionally, by determining the other brands people in the same segments resonate to, brand managers can determine co-branding opportunities.

Total Research will shortly be releasing the Top Ten Brands in each industry measured in the EquiTrend Online survey. This will tell where individual brands stand in terms of their perceived quality compared to:

- other brands in the same industry category.

- key competitors (brands striving for the same market segments) within their
category.

- all other brands across America's brandscape.

- the 20 "world class" brands identified by the survey.

Total Research grew by nearly 30 percent last year, compared to the industry growth of 9 percent, making it the second fastest growing marketing research firm out of the top 30 largest firms in the United States. It is now the 20th largest marketing research firm in the US, according to the Honomichl Top 50 annual ranking.

Total Research Corporation, www.totalresearch.com, specializes in the development and application of predictive marketing research and other advanced research technologies. Total Research also provides integrated marketing services, including e-products and services used to assist clients worldwide in applying information and insight to marketing practices through the point of sale. The Company is based in Princeton, New Jersey and has other offices in London, Buenos Aires, Minneapolis and Tampa.