Toyota top brand
It's a case of 'swings and roundabouts' for some of the world's best known automotive brands, but Toyota is 'king of the castle'Toyota is the world's best known car brand according to a new report released last week.
The Japanese giant is the top automotive company in the ranking which records in descending order, the brand value of 100 of the world's top companies, not necessarily just automotive companies.
The report, prepared by brand consultancy 'Interbrand' and BusinessWeek placed Coca Cola, Microsoft and IBM as the world’s best known nameplates.
Toyota was sixth position immediately ahead of Mercedes-Benz. BMW was 13th and Honda 19th.
Coming in at 41 was Ford, followed by Volkswagen (54), Audi (68), Hyundai, (72) Porsche (75), Lexus (92) and Nissan (98).
The report cited BMW as an example of brand management providing a framework in which to make decisions. Formula One involvement is a good corporate showcase for the company and boosts the brand image, but sponsoring a marathon (the example given in the report), might dilute the brand and should be avoided, no matter how tempting a case it might provide at a local level.
Toyota was another car company held up as an exemplary brand management scenario, improving their position in the table through addressing environmental concerns.
Audi and BMW had both improved substantially on their previous (2006) score, but Ford slid backwards. Interbrand's advice to Ford was to re-launch the Mustang as a flagship model and downplay the heavy reliance on SUV and truck sales.
Ford's current position is described by Interbrand as 'lack of Demand Creation'. As the name suggests, the company needs to create within their consumers a sense of desire to purchase the company's goods or services. In a practical sense, this means creating 'Halo' cars if you're a car manufacturer.
Interbrand's method of establishing brand values was based on subtracting the cost of goods sold and the value of intangibles such as patents and management strength from forecast earnings and current revenue.
This score -- measured in billions of US dollars -- is an indicator of the strength of the brand as an incentive within itself for the consumer to buy from that respective company. The score can be compared with earlier scores for that company to check whether it's on the way up or down.
To comment on this article click here
Tags
Please see our Editorial Guidelines & Code of Ethics (including for more information about sponsored content and paid events). The information published on this website is of a general nature only and doesn’t consider your particular circumstances or needs.
