Brand effectiveness - does it exist?

Here's an interesting exercise you can try at home, if you have access to research databases. I'd love to get some feedback on this.

I searched in EBSCO, a database of journals and academic papers, for "Brand" in the title. I got 2028 hits. I then narrowed the criteria to "Brand + effectiv*" - 21 hits. This means that there is less than 1% of research articles relating to brand that deal with its effectiveness. It gets better.

I then searched for "Brand + ROI" and got one hit. I even read this article - a weakly researched piece of assertion by a brand consultant.

Just in case EBSCO is particulalrly weak in articles on branding, I tried the same exercise with ProQuest. Similar results: "Brand" = 2262 hits, "Brand + effectiv*" = 12 hits, "Brand + ROI" = zero hits.

Now, this exercise is less than scientific. But at best it does indicate a paucity of robust research into brand effectiveness. At worst, it confirms scepticism of the value of brand and rubbishes the idea of brand equity.

If anyone knows of research that demonstrates the value of brand and can directly relate it to sales, I'd be really interested.