Definition
Brand equity is the commercial value that derives from consumer perception of a brand name rather than from the underlying product or service itself, realized through a business's ability to charge a premium price and retain customer loyalty and recognition across product generations, outlasting any single product cycle.
In Panel Profits
In Panel Profits, 'Brand Equity' is the comic-market analog of cross-generational character recognition: the degree to which a character (Spider-Man, Batman, Wolverine) commands premium, stable demand across multiple, non-overlapping generations of buyers introduced to the character through different media (comics, film, TV, games), rather than through the original print run alone. Unlike Key Issue Premium, which prices a single landmark issue, Brand Equity prices the character itself and shows up as a demand floor across that character's entire back catalog -- including otherwise unremarkable issues -- that a comparably-aged character without cross-generational recognition does not receive.
Comic-market example
Ordinary 1940s Batman filler issues trade at a premium over similarly-aged, similarly-scarce filler issues starring characters with no ongoing media presence, because Batman's brand equity has been continuously renewed by new generations of readers and viewers since 1939, while the comparison character's recognition ended with its original readership.
Common mistakes
Do not conflate Brand Equity with Key Issue Premium -- a character can have very high brand equity while a specific ordinary issue in that character's run still trades near filler-issue FMV; brand equity raises the floor across the run, it does not by itself create a landmark-issue spike.