When I published The Empire of Brands — Leveraging the Greatest Asset of the Global Economy (1995) and Intangible Capital — A Guide to Best Practices for the Valuation of Intangible Assets (2012), the topic was comfortably dismissed as a technical niche. Executives acknowledged brands and intangibles, but only within safe boundaries—as accounting line items and marketing expenditures: brands, advertising, patents, contracts, and other resources that could be measured and controlled, while conveniently ignoring their role as strategic drivers.
Back then, I also proposed a distinction that would prove decisive: the difference between intangible assets and intangible factors.
Intangible assets are legally controlled—trademarks, intellectual property, and distribution contracts. Intangible factors, on the other hand, are the extracontractual elements that truly differentiate businesses: reputation, trust, cultural coherence, purpose, legitimacy. They don’t belong to the company; they belong to the market’s perception of it. Even when absent from the balance sheet, they determine whether tangible assets create or destroy value.
The Prophecy Confirmed
Thirty-one years later, the J.P. Morgan Global M&A Outlook 2026 confirms what was once methodological provocation: intangible factors have become the primary drivers of value and risk in global transactions. Mega-deals are back, liquidity is abundant, technology dominates, but what differentiates successful operations is the same principle I articulated decades ago: symbolic coherence.
The term has matured. What I once called “brand value” and “intangible factor” has evolved into what I now define as symbolic capital—the constellation of perceptions, narratives, and meanings that sustain confidence in a brand, its management, its corporate structure, and its future. This capital cannot be owned by contract; it can only be earned through consistency.
From Financial Value to Symbolic Value
J.P. Morgan’s report makes it explicit: companies that align purpose, narrative, and execution capture the greatest valuation premium. It is the same phenomenon I analyze in Valuation’s Missing Piece and BrandingLeaks—the undeniable shift from financial value to symbolic value as perceived by the market.
Artificial intelligence has simply accelerated this transition. By reducing analytical costs and increasing predictive precision, AI exposed what has always been true: everything measurable eventually becomes a commodity. What remains distinctive is what cannot be easily quantified—perception, culture, trust.
What J.P. Morgan calls “reputational and coherence risk” is, in essence, the financial manifestation of symbolic capital, the point where the intangible stops being descriptive and becomes causal.
The Evolution of a Thesis
Thirty-one years on, the thesis of The Empire of Brands and Intangible Capital has not only held true—it has evolved into a symbolic valuation framework connecting economic rationality with cultural meaning.
As I argue in Valuation’s Missing Piece:
“Price is only the financial translation of a value that begins earlier—in the meaning of the intangible factors the market recognizes before it can measure.”
Today, symbolic capital is the new frontier of valuation. Understanding that frontier is no longer optional. It’s the difference between calculating value and truly comprehending it.
José Roberto Martins, MSc. is a strategic advisor in brand valuation and intangible assets. Author of BrandingLeaks (2025) and Valuation’s Missing Piece (2026), he advises corporations and financial institutions on M&A, brand strategy, and reputational governance.
Visit GlobalBrands®Framework for consulting and mentoring on brand valuation, reputational due diligence, and symbolic risk in M&A.