The application of knowledge-based systems to brand evaluation

BRAND EVALUATOR is a prototype expert system which has been designed to assist brand specialists in evaluating the worth of branded products. The paper describes the process of knowledge acquisition and elicitation and the design, development and validation of BRAND EVALUATOR. It examines the problems encountered, system limitations and achievements of the project. BRAND Evaluator is implemented as a forward-chaining rule-based system using a Prolog-based expert system toolkit, Poplog-Flex, which runs on a SUN workstation. The system gives score ranges for five key `Brand Strength´ factors included in the evaluation of brands, and finally an overall score range for the brand. BRAND EVALUATOR concentrates at present on one market sector only-the food and drinks market