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7/31/2019 Best Australian Brands 2009
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Best Australian
Brands 2009Ranked by brand value
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Appendix
27 Commonly asked questions
32 About Interbrand
32 Contact us
01 Best Australian Brands
A letter rom Damian Borchok
02 Overview
Best Australian Brands 2009
03 Why the Best Australian Brands
ranking is important
04 The Red Thread by Jez Frampton
Putting the brand at the core o the
business becomes a uniting orce behind
everything you do and say to drive value
08 The uture o uture-proong brand
investments by Greg Silverman
How will we measure the unobservable
and make inormed brand investment?
10 Planning your touchpoints to
accelerate prot by Rune Gustason
Understanding brand as a centralorganising principle requires the
management o every touchpoint to
build the experience or consumers
12 Interbrands approach to
valuing brands
Criteria or consideration
and methodology
13 Top line industry stories
by Lynton Pipkorn
Trends and insights into Australian brands
16 Ranking
Proles o Australias Most
Valuable Brands and other prominent
Australian brands
Contents
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Best
AustralianBrandsInterbrand presents the ourth ranking o the mostvaluable Australian brands, arranged by brand value.
Biography:
As Managing Director or Australia,
Damian Borchok believes
brands need bold strategies and
remarkable creative execution to
deliver breakthrough perormances.
His past clients include Telstra, News
Limited, Goldman Sachs JBWere,
ASX, Perpetual, Fuji Xerox, Diageo,
Qantas, David Jones and Nestl.
demand or their goods and services around the
world. Strong brands also create allegiance, use
dierentiation so they are not easily replicable,
work harder to impact markets, and command
premium pricing. The best brands also attract
the best talent, continually reward investors,
use leadership to grow market share, and are
better in economic downturns. They are
business assets that create value and give
companies tighter control o their uture.
As this study shows, many Australian brands
are poised or urther growth. Australian brands
are aggressively seeking to expand away rom
our shores into larger and more lucrative
overseas markets. This promises these brands
greater growth opportunities, and reduces risk
to their earnings prole and urther revenue
generation capabilities. Some companies such
as Billabong, Macquarie Group, Harvey Norman,
Ansell, Computershare, Flight Centre and even
Australia Post have now established oshore
cash ows. This strategy has proven to be
a great success or these brands, and it is clear
that many Australian brands are well prepared
or the challenges that lie ahead. I would liketo take this opportunity to congratulate each
brand in making the Best Australian Brands
table. I wish you every success in your brand-
building eorts and the uture that lies
ahead. I would also like to take this moment
to thank Monash University and the Faculty
o Business and Economics or their research
support in producing the Best Australian Brands
2009 study.
Yours sincerely,
Damian Borchok
Managing Director
Interbrand Australia
The economic turmoil o recent months has
made it more important than ever to
understand your brand. The past studies o
the Best Australian Brands were conducted in
times o economic growth. In good economic
times, most brands will create some sort
o value. But in todays uncertain times,
where short- to medium-term prots are
under signicant pressure, the challenge
or all brands will be to evaluate their brand
proposition and better understand their
customers perceptions o value. At the same
time, the dramatic shits in demand and
business sentiment have altered the horizon
or most marketing departments. There is
continued pressure placed on ROI, and the
temptation is to cut marketing budgets,
discount prices and reposition brands as value
propositions to maintain cash ows. Yet, such
tactical approaches may erode long-term
brand value we all know it is much harder
to trade a customer back up the value chain
once margins have been eroded.
Protecting the brands long-term compound
investment must remain the highest priority.The careul crating o a brands positioning
must not be put at risk by expedient use o
tactical communications that drive short-
term volume benets. Such a strategy can
lead to the destruction o the promises that
created value or the brand in the rst place.
The real test or Australian brands weathering
the economic downturn and creating
sustainable long-term brand value lies in
understanding these promises and staying
true to the pillars that orm the oundation
o a businesss brand value.
Strong brands develop even stronger productsand services, undeniably creating sustainable
value or their owners. I brands are innovative
and managed correctly, they can move
seamlessly across geographies, transcend
dierent languages and cultures, and create
Best Australian Brands 2009 01
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The key to successul brand value
management or Australian brands is to put
in place strategies that take advantage o
opportunities in the downturn, then set
a budget to achieve that strategy. Brands
will need to work harder and smarter in this
period to maintain leadership and generate
brand value. Central to their success will be
the ability to get closer to stakeholders by
employing more robust, end user-orientated
analytics practices to yield greater evidence-
based insights and outcomes.
The article, The Future o Future-Proong
Brand Investments, by Greg Silverman
highlights how analytics can assist brandsto make more inormed brand investments.
These analytics-based approaches aid
precision in decision-making and lead to more
eective insights and protable outcomes.
By integrating brand analytics approaches
throughout strategy, design and brand
valuation, more precise capabilities are
now available. These oer more eective
diagnostic tools to understand the economic
benets that brand assets provide to their
owners. Brands with oresight and vision
can now more eectively leverage the
dierentiation and strength o the brand
proposition relative to their competitors.
As a result, it is not only possible to quantiy
a brands contribution in the decision-making
process and to measure its competitive
strength in acquiring and retaining
customers. Now, we can also predict the
value o an innovation and understand at
which communications touchpoint a brand
investment generates the most demand.
By better understanding the equity drivers
that create demand and impact brand value,
brands will be better positioned to maintain
cash ows, justiy ROI and preserve the nowprecious equity residing in the brand. In doing
this, brands will be best positioned to emerge
rom the downturn and ready to capitalize
on their weaker rivals when markets begin
to recover.
We are delighted to unveil the Best Australian
Brands 2009.
In order to qualiy or the Best Australian Brands
study, the company that owns the brand must
be listed on the Australian Stock Exchange or
have its nancial inormation publicly available.
The brand must be registered or at least three
years, and it must originate in Australia or be
owned by Australian companies.
The ollowing insights highlight the specics
o the Best Australian Brands ranking,
and the present situation o Australias best
perorming brands.
Telstra,inrstposition,continuestobe
Australias most valuable brand at A$ 9.7
billion. In second position and valued at
A$ 7.1 billion, the Commonwealth Bank o
Australia (CBA) is Australias most valuable
banking brand (with National Australia
Bank at A$ 5.1 billion taking out third place).
Thetop10brandsprovedtobeverystable
and have demonstrated an ability to manage
their brands to create greater value over
a sustained period o time.
ThebignancialservicesbrandsinAustralia
have not yet been as seriously aected as
their contemporaries in others countries.
This is a result o the legacy o a strong
regulatory system, strong balance sheets
and a healthy domestic deposit base. CBA is
by ar Australias biggest bank and has gained
considerable value by representing a sae
nancial haven or a lot o Australians.
Ofconsiderableinterestgoingforwardwill
be how Westpac will manage the value o its
A$ 6.7 billion merger (the combined values
o both the Westpac and St. George brands).The challenge will be to continue to grow
the value o the St. George brand, currently
valued at A$ 1.9 billion, without eroding
Westpacs value.
It is important to mention that there are
other valuable Australian brands that would
make this list. However, because o diering
reporting periods or the inability to separate
individual brand earnings rom consolidated
gures, we are unable to include or estimate
their individual brand value.
The importance o brand valuation
The articles in this study introduce the
importance o understanding the importance
o brands as a central organizing principle.
Brand valuation is an essential step in this
process. It provides the weaponry to identiy
how brand inuences perormance byuncovering the key drivers that eect
consumer choice. And as a management
tool, brand valuation also reveals a number
o key insights that serve to provide an ROI
perspective and, more importantly, inorm
the uture strategic direction o the brand.
These include:
Recommendationsforhowbrandvalue
drivers can be incorporated into brand
positioning, media planning, communication
touchpoints and experience
Thehealthofthebrandstrengths,
weaknesses, brand development
opportunities, brand stretch and market/
competitive threats
Theextenttowhichbrandand
communications strategies are contributing
to creating brand value
Driversofcompetitiveadvantageandhow
these are sustainable
Areasofbrandweaknessandthestrategiesrequired to build brand strength and lit
brand perormance
Marketingspendguidancetoensurethe
greatest value impact
Overview
Best AustralianBrands 2009
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The branding practices employed by
Australian companies are becoming more
and more sophisticated. Interbrands ourth
ranking o the Best Australian Brands
continues to put an emphasis on brand
perormance and its contribution to
business perormance. The ranking provides
brand values that are measures o economic
perormance, stating what the brand is
worth overall and among competitors.
Brand value brings to marketing what
revenue goals or nancial hurdle rates
bring to other aspects o business.
The most important inormation comes
when one looks behind the number as a single number only tells so much. It is
more important to understand what drives
brand value:
Intangibleearnings:thecashowof
a business not associated with such
tangible assets as equipment or materials
Theroleofbrand:ameasureofhowmuch
brand inuences purchasing decisions
Brandstrength:abenchmarkofabrands
relative risk compared to competitors
Understanding the drivers o brand value can
inorm management action, rom overall
business strategy to specic marketing
tactics. It is an easy-to-use metric to help
brand owners determine where they are,
where they are going, and how to get there.
Brand valuation can assist in positioning
brand building as a critical aspect o
enterprise by answering the ollowing
questions.
Are we investing adequately in our brand?
Putting an economic value on a brand
(overall and by segment) can help make
a strong business case or marketing
investments, overall and across a brand
portolio. While delivering a very important
ROI measure, brand valuation, more
importantly, can help organisations to
understand what levers drive brand value.
It is these insights that can assist in the
appropriate allocation o investment andthe development o the strategic catalysts
that can inuence uture value creation.
Is our marketing perormance eective
and ecient?
Your customers make decisions every day
between you and your competitors.
Analysing the role o brand in those decisions
helps you to ocus your strategy on the
attributes that dierentiate your brand rom
others and to strengthen your relationship
with your best customers, thereby ensuring
uture earnings.
Are short-term tactics driving long-term
value creation?
By analysing the strength o your brand,
you can target marketing campaigns to
your most valuable customers in the most
competitive manner. This can enable you to
drive short-term sales without sacricing
long-term brand strength and relevance.
Most importantly, this ranking is presented
to oster debate and put greater emphasis
on the practice o branding. Our goal is to
demonstrate that brands are important
assets yielding signicant economic value.
To maximise the value inherent in your brand
requires proactive and consistent investment,
management and measurement.
Why do no Australian brands make the
Global Best Brands list?
While there are many signicantly valuable
Australian brands, none have yet to appear
on the Best Global Brands list. To qualiy
or the global table, at least one-third o
earnings needs to be earned rom outsidethe companys home base. The brand must
also be well-established in a wide number
o markets around the world and be
managed consistently as a global brand.
To put it into perspective, the 100th most
valuable brand in the 2008 Best Global
Brands Study was VISA, with an estimated
value o US$ 3.338 billion, which is
equivalent to A$ 5.188 billion at current
exchange rates. While some Australian
brands have a greater brand value, they
simply do not have the geographic spread
that would make them eligible to reach the
Top 100 Best Global Brands list.
Why the Best
Australian Brandsrankingis important
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The Red Thread is a concept woven
through many cultures. According to Greek
mythology, Theseus ound his way through
the Minotaurs labyrinth by ollowing
Ariadnes red thread, and a amous Chinese
proverb describes an invisible red thread
that connects us to all o the people well
ever meet. The Russians call it krasnaia nit,
and the French le l rouge. In German, roter
aden literally red thread is used to
describe the central or recurrent theme
o a larger work.
The idea o a bright, illuminating thread
that runs through everything, rom the
smallest ragment to the whole, is powerul
and captivating. In our world, this is
a wonderully rich and simple metaphor
or brand value.
The top perorming brands understand
the reality behind this metaphor. For them,
the notion o value runs like a red thread
through their brands, driving demand
throughout every aspect o their business.
They know that their brands must unction
as assets, not as expenses, and that even
the greatest brand idea is only as powerulas its ability to generate value.
The Red Thread:
creating and managingbrand valueby Jez Frampton
All o the ropes o the royal feet,rom the strongest to the thinnest,
are braided so that a red threadtravels through all o them, and youcannot remove it without untying allo them. Even the smallest ragmentwill still allow you to recognise thatthe rope belongs to the crown.From Goethes Elective Afnities (1809)
Biography:
Jez Frampton, Interbrands Group
Chie Executive, is responsible or
managing the rms worldwide
interests and enhancing the
strategic and creative oering.
Jezs experience has provided him
the opportunity to work with
dierent clients across multiple
sectors, including premier brands
like Budweiser, IBM and Toyota.
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The subject o brand value has been well
documented since Interbrand rst developed
the concept in the early 1980s. Today, our
competitors, commentators in the press,
the nancial community, and the industry
at large have much to say about the topic.
At heart, its a simple idea. I a brand plays
a role in choice and a consumer must choose
between dierent competitive products or
services in a marketplace, then the brand
must contribute to earnings and prot and
hence, must be quantiable and valuable
to the owner. In order to really understand
the creation o brand value, we need to
understand what actors drive demand,
what role the brand plays across each o
those actors, and how strong the brand is
versus its competitors.
But the Red Thread is about more than
a value-generating brand. Its about
understanding how that value is generated.
Its about creating, managing, and
measuring brand value across every aspect
o the business.
To put this into context, lets consider an
analogy. Capable o accelerating rom zero
to 100 miles per hour and back to zero in
under our seconds, a Formula 1 racing car
represents the very edge o technology in
the motor industry. Every car is ne-tuned
or each individual race, and every surace
and element o the car can be altered to create
the best aerodynamics, braking pressure,
tire pressure, gear ratios, suspension and
more. It is not the car but each individual
component o that car that must contribute
to the vehicles ultimate success.
Whats more, those components can
be quantitatively measured, giving the
racing team the inormation necessary to
optimise the cars perormance in real time.
Data streams rom car to trackside with
detail about uel consumption, lubricant
temperatures, braking heat and even driver
heart rate. When the competition is erce
and the dierence between winning and
losing can be measured in ractions o
a second, every detail must be tuned to win.
Imagine how powerul it would be i you
understood how your brand creates value
to the same degree o detail. Are you as
intimate with the perormance o your
brand as Formula 1 racing teams are with
the perormance o their cars? Are you as
prepared to battle the competition? Do you
quantitatively understand exactly how your
brand generates value?
By using brand valuation as a diagnostic
tool, we can now understand the preciseeconomic benets that brand has on every
aspect o our businesses. It is now possible
not only to quantiy a brands contribution in
the decision-making process and to measure
its competitive strength in acquiring and
retaining customers, but to predict the value
o an innovation and understand at which
touchpoint our brand investment generates
the most demand. The Red Thread helps us
see where in the acquisition process we lose
potential customers to our competitors,
which brand attributes are relevant at each
step in the customer journey, and ar more.
Most importantly, it helps us determine
exactly what it is that must be changed,
and how, in order to maximise value.
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Brand building isnt
a separate exerciserom the day-to-dayrunning o the business.It is integral to it.
Consider our work or BMW. Everything in
that organisation is coerced and corralled
into a single uniying vision, all united by
one value-generating idea. For BMW, this
red thread is the commitment to please
customers with the very best in automotive
engineering. This maniests itsel in a
ew obvious ways, such as its tagline and
messaging, but also guides management
decisions on everything rom showroom
plans to abric choices, and ensures that the
companys outer voice (what it says its going
to do) reects its inner voice (what it actually
does). And, as 93 percent o employees
believe that BMW Group is a great place to
work, its no wonder this translates to a brand
worth US$ 23 billion and the highest brand
value per automobile sold.
This is true o many o the worlds most
valuable brands. Look at Apple, whose
promise o a dierent experience through
ease o use creates a red thread that touches
all aspects o their business, including
product innovation and interace design.
At Disney, the commitment to create
magical experiences produces undeniable
value, orming a red thread that aects
everything rom the appearance and
behavior o its cast members to its
television programming. For Nike, the idea
o perormance runs through the business
rom Just do it to how the organisationgets it done.
Or take Interbrand, an example that is near
and dear to me. For us, the notion o brand
value itsel is our Red Thread. We are the
consultancy that sees brands as economic
assets, as drivers o demand, and creators
o wealth. We believe that behind every great
brand is a great idea that generates value.
Our daily mission is to understand how that
value is created across our clients businesses,
providing strategic advice and creative
solutions that have a common purpose and
oundation in generating demand. Whether
we are producing the corporate identities
that will uel the iconic images o the 21st
century or crating brand architectures to
optimise the way a major global enterprise
manages its assets, value is quite simply
the lieblood at the very heart o our business,
the common theme that unites us andmakes us stand out rom the crowd.
I believe that the concepts o brand and value
are inseparable. To be truly eective, brands
must be built around the thing that generates
the most value or your business. A brand
conceived in this ashion will create demand,
in turn improving the monetary value o
the business. Managed properly, this ever-
growing cycle o value creation will dene
the very essence o the 21st centurys
eminent brands.
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But to get there, we need to change the
undamental way that we think about our
businesses. Most companies spend massive
amounts o time and money optimising their
supply chains, but ew are willing to make
an adequate investment in the demand
side o their businesses. This is most likely
because the supply side is physical and
real. Its easy to understand the return on
tangible investments. The demand side o
our businesses, though, is oten less clear.
It requires courage to invest in intangible
assets. Thankully, the ability to measure
these intangible assets through precise
analytics should help us reocus our attention
on creating demand.
We must also change the way we think about
brands themselves. Ten years ago, brandswere seen as an extension o marketing:
a kind o halo around a business that
made it emotionally appealing. Marketing
departments spent time creating brand ads
with their agencies, an exercise seen as more
strategic and separated rom the day-to-
day process o selling products, announcing
promotions, or launching campaigns.
Today, the world has come to realise that
brands are an extension o business strategy.
Now understood to dene the essence o
dierentiation and to serve as primary and
integral drivers o demand, brands have asmuch to do with product, service, retail,
packaging, culture, web, pricing, channels,
and environments, as they have to do with
marketing and communications.
Thats a powerul shit in thinking in a
relatively short period o time. Not everyone
is there yet, but the leaders are. The global
corporations at the top o the Fortune 500 or
our own Best Global Brands ranking see the
world this way, and its only a matter o time
beore it becomes common practice.
Some audiences, despite accepting the
notion o a red thread, might believe that
the current economic climate makes this
the wrong time to invest in measuring and
managing brand value. But this could be
a costly mistake. This is the ideal time to
optimise budgets to ensure that every dollar
spent is driving demand and creating value.
Every boardroom is subject to greater degrees
o scrutiny over the use o shareholder unds
and now, more than ever, we need to knowwhere were likely to win, and where were
likely to lose.
All businesses thataspire to build greatervalue should considertheir red thread.
Without one, yourbrand may not begenerating real value.
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Understanding brand today
Beore dening the way a brand works, it is necessary to
understand the role o the brand and brand strength. The role
o brand explains what percentage o any purchase decision
is attributable to the brand. It is a measure o the inuence
brand has on customer demand. This understanding inorms
decision-makers on how the brand is doing today. Brand
strength, on the other hand, is a series o benchmarks that
measure a brands ability to secure ongoing customer demand
(choice, repurchase, retention).
Together, the role o brand and brand strength provide
managers with the knowledge to understand the uture
outcomes o marketing decisions made today. When
incorporated with current computing and analytics
capabilities, the combination is no longer just inormed
speculation. Rather, it oers measurable scenarios that
can provide insights that lead to courageous decisions.
I you type brand management in the Google search box
and ollow the link to the rst denition available, this is
what appears: Branding seeks to distinguish your company,
product or service rom the competition and create a lasting
impression in your prospects mind. (www.1000ventures.com)
Given the relevancy scores that Google is presumed to obtain 90 percent it is sae to assume that this denition is the
common understanding o brand management.
The web search denition is important because it suggests
that brands are competing with each other or consumers.
When ocusing on competition, the branding industry
traditionally looks to the role o the brand, as it is a measure
o inuence and compares the brand against other decision
criteria. This measure o inuence is capitalised on when
a brands equity unlocks value by connecting with end-users.
Unlocked value is brand strength the ability to protect
uture revenue.
The new order
This relatively static picture o competition and branding
has dominated the landscape or decades. However, over
the last decade, this ramework has broken down with the
increasing dominance o social networks. Social networksare moving the branding debate rom the traditional and
hierarchical to the latent and networked. As such, the
long-held view o competition and branding no longer works
because the orces behind the collective value o all social
networks have changed. In short, our customers culture
is trumping our strategy.
Along with the declining relevance o old strategy models,
we are witnessing a decline in the impact o the measures
attached to them. The greatest advance in the past decade
has been in the realm o choice-based research and marketing
mix models that measure change in a limited number o issues
in a marketplace. Marketing mix models are rooted in the
conventional wisdom that, i you track spending and sales
simultaneously controlling or all other variables then you
can clearly identiy what is optimal. A question still remains:
What company can actually control or all the variability o
the market? Media mix has clearly improved efciency, but
the process is backward-looking. Additionally, the rigid data
requirements do not accommodate the most important
actor: emergent social network inuences are
not simple to track.
Heres a common example: Apples new iPhone specs were
posted among riends on Facebook and the specs received
poor eedback, which magnied critics reviews. How can
Apple account or word o mouth that could change theproduct launch environment? The challenge now is to predict
the unpredictable in a new market environment.
The uture o
uture-proong brandinvestmentsby Greg Silverman
Biography:
Greg Silverman is the Global Practice
Leader o Analytics. With over 20 years
o experience in the business,
Greg and his team measure brand
investment to show in advance
whether an idea has the potential to
earn brand equity. He has done work
on an extensive list o clients that
boast some o the biggest brand
names in the world, including AT&T,
Bank o America, Lexus, and Gillette.
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There is no better time than now orstrong brands to understand models
that uncover the hidden behaviorbehind these new revenue streams.
A new paradigm
Many marketers today unnecessarily constrain themselves
by saying, You can only optimise what you know.
With todays consumers riding on waves o unobserved
and hard to track patterns, new tools are needed to provide
a uture-looking perspective on brand-related value creation.The breakthrough in measurement will come in agent-based
modeling (ABM). An agent-based model is a computational
model or simulating the actions and interactions o
autonomous individuals in a network. It is capable o
assessing an individuals eects on the system as a whole
by combining elements o game theory, complex systems,
emergence, computational sociology, multi-agent systems,
and evolutionary programming. Monte Carlo methods are
used to introduce randomness.
The models simulate the simultaneous operations o
multiple agents, in an attempt to recreate and predict the
actions o complex phenomena. The process arises out o
a multiplicity o relatively simple interactions. The tool not
only captures the efciency requirements o media models,
but also accounts or emerging orms o behavior that
uel innovation. Currently, it is being applied to orward-
looking business decisions.
Agent-based modeling has already enabled:
AUShealthcareprovidertoaccuratelypredictthe
adoption o a new plan among seniors
Aglobalsportsorganisationtolauncharebrandingcampaign that creates ree buzz
Anautomotivecompanytoeectivelyreduce
incentives while growing market share
Amajorconsumergoodsretailertolowerstore
size 30 percent and increase sales
The uture
Media mix optimisation drives cost management, which can
help meet the street, but oten sacrices investment in new
revenue streams. Discrete choice modelling can evaluate
changes in the know. Although both oer insights into brand,
neither delivers on the imagination required to generate
growth or brands. In the end, revenue sustainability is the
hallmark o a good brand. Its strength lies in its ability to
protect uture earnings during down markets and unlock
value where brand can play a role.
Seemingly disparate groups of information become value creating segments
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Planning your touchpoints
to accelerate protby Rune Gustason
We continually observe that the most
successul brands strive to put the brandat the heart o their business.
They understand that, by using the brand
as a central organising principle, they can
direct every single business unction, rom
HR and Distribution to Finance. In doing
so, they are able to deliver a truly holistic
brand experience that runs through the
organisation and then outwards, thus
engaging the customer.
The brand ultimately engages customers
(or any other stakeholder) in many dierent
ways, be it through advertising, product,packaging, and its people. Each contact or
touchpoint builds up an experience that
endures well beyond the product or service.
It denes and reinorces the perceptions
that customers have about the brand.
Conversely, it is equally powerul at dening
negative perceptions o a brand.
For service businesses, touchpoints are oten
time-based and are perishable experiences
that increase reputation risks. But touchpoints
also provide a golden opportunity to create
a powerul moment o intimacy through
sta-customer interactions. Shiting these
perceptions is the crucial oundation to
staying closer to current customers and
engaging new customers to try your brand
or the rst time. These deliver increased
revenues and margins that accelerate brand
value and protable growth or investors.
Nordstrom targets a single touchpoint
Nordstrom, the US retailer, has dominated
its market though the service it delivers to its
core customers. It has proven that customers
will pay a higher price or a superior service.
In so doing, this helps to dierentiate it romlow-price discount brands (Nordstroms sales
per square oot are twice the industry average).
The service dierentiation is delivered though
the belie that, at all times, the most important
person in the entire business is the customer.
It counter-intuitively achieves this not
with a biblical service manual but with
a single rule:
Useyourgoodjudgmentinallsituations.
This is ollowed by, There are no additional
rules. Nordstrom recognises that building
customer relationships is done one customerat a time. Nordstrom shares antastic
relationship-building stories throughout the
organisation to illustrate and train everyone
about what its service ethos o going the
extra mile means in practice. For example,
a customer who was at its Chicago store
searching or a black bow tie told this story:
I was going to a black-tie party, and
needed a ready-made bow tie. Nordstroms
didnt stock one, but the guy there said,
I you have ten minutes, how about I teach
you how to tie one? And, in the middle o
abusySaturdayafternoon,hedidjustthat
and got the sale. I was happy, I recommend
them to everyone, and I still tell the story
ten years later.
Clearly, the power o a great service ethos
can generate sales, great relationships and
great word o mouth marketing. But the most
important lesson marketers can learn rom
Nordstrom is that it invests primarily in a single
touchpoint. O course, its stores are clean and
well designed, but its ocus is on the sta-
customer touchpoint.
Every CEO and CMO knows that they must invest
in their brands experience. But the question
that haunts them is: Which touchpoint is the
driver o purchases and which ones are simply
nice to have? Early thinking on touchpoints
was based on satisying each contact to a better
level than your competitor. This approach is
highly ineective and reduces business
perormance because it ollows our classic
touchpoint management mistakes.
Biography:
Rune Gustason is Chie Executive
Ofcer o Interbrand in London.
Rune leverages his extensive
experience in brand and retail
propositions to regularly contribute
to publications and conerences
throughout the UK and Europe.
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Classic touchpointmanagement mistakes
01 Targeting too many
customer segments
Businesses oten try to appeal to the widest
possible audience. But without dening a
narrow, attitudinally based audience, the
touchpoint experience will be ragmented
and oten results in conicting perceptions.
02 Dilution o the brand investment across
too many touchpoints
There are literally hundreds o possible
touchpoints and no brand in the world has
the time or resources to deliver each contact
to the highest level.
03 Competing on basic actors only
In an increasingly competitive environment,
classic benchmarking activities ensure that
brands copy each others dierentiators
resulting in a zero sum game. They are
mistakenly all trying to compete on best
practices rather than boldly challenging
convention. Those that do, like Virgin
or Disney, have been able to create anunassailable dierentiation with their
chosen target customers.
04 Relying on customer myths
to prioritise choices
The leading brands demonstrate that they
have the leadership mindset to make hard
choices and prioritise customer segments,
touchpoints and investments based on acts
rather than perceived wisdom.
Each contactor touchpointbuilds up anexperiencewhich endureswell beyond
the productor service.
Fact-based touchpointstrategy
The only way to develop a touchpoint
strategy that will increase business
perormance (and avoid these our mistakes)
is with a act-based, analytical approach.
InterContinental Hotels is an excellent
example o a traditional brand that has
re-invigorated itsel by developing a new
brand positioning and executing it perectly
by embedding it in the customer experience
and oer. It used a sophisticated statistical
Return on Investment (ROI) model designed
to identiy where and how to invest in the
customer experience. First, it identied
a narrow target audience that had a clear
attitudinal preerence or luxury travel
experiences that enriched their lie and
provided them with the additional social
currency o local knowledge and stories.
Then, InterContinental cleverly used the
statistical model to identiy which specic
parts o the customer experience truly
drove them to choose InterContinental
and, as a result, strongly increased theirsatisaction. This provided the Executive
Board with the clear evidence o what drives
revenues and margin. It also identied
areas o cost saving; parts o the experience
(and costs) that could be removed without
aecting their customers satisaction.
Its new positioning is the hotel brand that is
In the Know and delivers exactly what its
guests value without the things they dont
value. Guests benet rom the authentic,
insider knowledge about the places they
visit. They are prepared to pay a premium
(and stay more requently) or gaining this
social currency and the priceless stories they
could share with their amily and riends.
The challenge was to educate and motivate
large numbers o migrant or part-time
sta employees to deliver on this promise
consistently around the world. It was
a undamental shit to move rom hiding
the sta to making them the heroes and
encouraging them to interact with guests.
For employees, this new positioning was
translated into an insider knowledge program
or sta. It used the phrase, To you its just
a walk to work; to our guest its a great viewo local culture to educate and empower
all their sta to share their local knowledge
with guests.
Making bolder, act-based investmentdecisions
The InterContinental Executive Board boldly
decided to invest heavily in its sta as its
primary touchpoint, with the statistical
knowledge that this would deliver the highest
ROI. In act, it would provide almost double
the ROI compared to any other touchpoint.
Had it made many o the classic touchpoint
mistakes outlined above and invested too
little in too many touchpoints with too many
customer segments, it would certainly not
have achieved such strong business results.
InterContinentals brand has revived in the
year ollowing the 2006 rebrand. There was
an increase in positive brand perception o
10 percent and an increase in revenue per
room o 12 percent (source: IHG.com).
The success o this rebranding was the ability
o the business to put their brand positioning,
In the Know, at the heart o their operations
and translate this into a valuable touchpoint.
In a world where consumers are bombarded
by multiple messages every minute and
internal investment is increasingly scarce,there is an unequivocal case to be made
or drastically reducing the number o
touchpoints and investing strongly in a single
touchpoint that accelerates brand value and
protable growth. This naturally raises the
ollowing critical questions or every CEO
and CMO:
HowdoyoucurrentlymeasuretheROI
o your touchpoints?
Whichtouchpointscanyoulivewithout?
Whichtouchpointcanyoutrulyown
that dierentiates your brand?
Whichtouchpointactuallydrives
your prots?
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Criteria orconsideration
Using the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX)
200 list o Australias largest publicly traded
corporations, and drawing upon more
than 30 years o consulting experience,
Interbrand ormed an initial consideration
set o eligible brands. All were then subject
to the ollowing criteria that narrowed
candidates signicantly:
Thebrandmusthaveoriginatedin
Australia. Hence, oreign-owned brands
operating in Australia are excluded,
e.g. Coke, McDonalds, Nike and Ford
ThebrandmustbeAustralianowned.Similarly, once Australian-owned but now
oreign-owned brands have been excluded,
e.g. Holden, Vegemite, Arnotts and Speedo
Theremustbesubstantialpubliclyavailable
nancial data
Thebrandmustbeamarket-facingbrand
TheEconomicValueAdded(EVA)mustbe
positive. I a brand is reporting negative
earnings, it can be difcult to derive a brand
value or the brand, unless strongly positive
orecast earnings are projected
Itiscriticallyimportantthatweareable
to identiy the brands total nancial
perormance, including revenues, prot
and asset base
The Interbrand approach
to valuing brands
Methodology
The Interbrand method or valuing brands
is a proven and straightorward ormula that
examines brands through the lens o nancial
strength, importance in driving consumer
selection, and the likelihood o ongoing
branded revenue. Our method evaluates
brands much like analysts would value any
other asset: on the basis o how much theyre
likely to earn in the uture.
There are three core components to our
proprietary method, as ollows.
Financial analysis
Our approach to valuation starts byorecasting the current and uture revenue
specically attributable to the branded
products. We subtract operating costs rom
revenue to calculate branded operating prot.
We then apply a charge to the branded prot
or capital employed. This gives us economic
earnings. All nancial analysis is based on
publicly available company inormation.
Interbrand culls rom a range o analysts
reports to build a consensus estimate or
nancial reporting.
Role o brand analysis
A measure o how the brand inuences
customer demand at the point o purchase
is applied to the economic earnings to arrive
at Branded Earnings. For this study, industry
benchmark analysis or the role the brand
plays in driving customer demand is derived
rom Interbrands database o more than
5,000 prior valuations conducted over the
course o 20 years. In-house market research
is used to establish individual brand scores
against our industry benchmarks.
Brand strength score
This is a benchmark o the brands ability tosecure ongoing customer demand (loyalty,
repurchase and retention) and thus sustain
uture earnings, translating branded earnings
into net present value. This assessment is
a structured way o determining the specic
risk to the strength o the brand. We compare
the brand against common actors o brand
strength, such as market position, customer
ranchise, image and support.
Year Year Year Year Year
Brand Revenues
Economic Earnings
Brand Strength Analysis= Discount Rate
Role ofBrandAnalysis
BRAND
VALUE
Brand Earnings
Brand Value CalculationFinancial AnalysisForecasted current andfuture revenue specificallyattributable to the brand
Role of BrandAnalysisA measure ofhow thebrand influences customerdemand at the point ofpurchase
Brand StrengthA benchmark ofthe brandsability to secure ongoingcustomer demand (loyalty,repurchase, retention).
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Australian brandscontinue to growdespite dicult timesThe past decade has been a boom or
Australian companies, with revenues
and prots showing extraordinary growth.In line with this growth, Australian
brands have continued to strengthen and
prosper, and the aggregate value o the
top 10 Australian brands is now worth
approximately A$ 43 billion.
Over the past decade, the Australian
economy has experienced robust economic
growth, buoyed by the expectation that
revenues and corporate prots will grow
across all industrial sectors. With near ull
employment, businesses and consumers
have exhibited condence in spending and
investment, propelling the perormance o
many brands to new heights.
More recently, however, the Australian
economy has aced a number o challenges.
The all out o the sub-prime mortgage
turmoil and ongoing global nancial crisis,
the rise and subsequent sharp all o the
Australian dollar, and the volatility in uel,
materials and raw commodity prices have all
hit home. As a result, a number o Australian
companies have battled signicant write-
downs, rising input costs and adverse
oreign exchange conditions, all o which
have put signicant pressure on protability
and the perormance o their brands.
For the rst time since the early nineties,
Australia is eeling the eects o a recession.
However, while a number o challengeremain, interest rates are now at their
lowest point in many years and ination
appears to have stabilised.
As we battle the global recession, the
challenge or Australian brands will be to
re-evaluate what they understand about their
customers. They must apply these insights
into consumer motivations and brand
perceptions to position their brands to
respond to these changes in business and
consumer sentiment. This can only stimulate
demand and build corporate value in the
years ahead.
It is also prudent to recognise that total
company values in relation to market
capitalisation are declining in the short-term
due to high levels o volatility. However,
well-managed brands are stable assets
in terms o brand value, and those that have
positioned themselves or the long term
should be the rst to prosper when the
economy begins to show the rst signs
o recovery.
Top line industry stories
by Lynton Pipkorn
Biography:
Lynton is Interbrand Australias Brand
Valuation and Analytics practice head.
Lynton is responsible or valuing brand
assets and managing the strategic
outcomes resulting rom valuation
and analytics projects or clients.
His previous clients include Qantas,
Nab, VISA, MLC, PwC, Bank o New
Zealand, Gazprom, National Foods,
Nestl and Nokia.
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The emergence oprivate equity
In recent years, private equity has begun
taking ownership and controlling stakes
in key brands. Brands that exempliy this
trend include Myer, Nine Network, Seven
Network and Repco.
With the exception o Myer, private equity
purchases have resulted in signicant
restructures o a number o businesses,
meaning their nancials are no longer
available or company structures are no longer
comparable to analyse or the purposes
o this study.
Brands such as Channel Nine and Channel
Seven have been subsumed by complex
company ownership and reporting structures,
making it difcult to access and isolate key
valuation and nancial inputs required to
create the Best Australian Brands study.
Banking and nance
The Australian banking landscape
has undergone considerable changes
in the past decade, with the sector
exhibiting strong growth and robust
operating conditions.
However, as we head into a deepening global
economic downturn, we have seen a urry
o activity connected to the extraordinary
events o the sub-prime meltdown and the
resulting global nancial crisis. The retailcommercial banks have suered their
rst collective prot all in 15 years with
pre-tax prots down by 23 percent in 2008.
The tightening o credit and the continued
rationalisation in the banking industry
is anticipated to create urther adverse
operating conditions.
In this context, the marketing messages rom
the major banks were quick to reect the
changing consumer and business sentiment
rom growth and wealth creation to security
and preservation by shiting their positioning
to saety and a return to conservatism in thelong term.
The highly publicised bankruptcy o Lehman
Brothers and the threatened insolvency o
major banking and nancial services brands
such as Northern Rock, AIG, Royal Bank
o Scotland, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch
triggered a signicant crisis o condence
with lenders and consumers, orcing the
Australian Federal Government to guarantee
the savings o all deposits under A$ 1 million.
Notwithstanding the allout o the credit
crunch, the our major banks continue to
retain prominent top 10 positions in the
Best Australian Brands study.
CBA remains the number one banking brand,
while St. George has entered the top 10 or the
rst and perhaps the last time. The combined
value o the our major banks is worth A$ 20.1
billion, almost hal the value contained in thetop 10.
In 2008, the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank
merger marked the rst major change in
the structure o the Australian banking
industry. Since then a number o other
regional and smaller brands have expressed
plans to merge as a result o domestic
and international pressures.
Commonwealth Bank, with the acquisition
o BankWest and 33 percent o Aussie Group,
has consolidated its place as Australias
largest nancial institution. St. George, beore
the merger announcement with Westpac,
was looking to challenge the big our
dominance. Now, as a combined dual-branded
organisation, the merged entity should create
one o Australias largest tier one banking
and nance groups.
The nancial crisis has also hampered the
perormance o a number o Australian banks.
In particular, ANZ and NAB both ace
a number o bad debt write- downs, and the
Federal Governments bank deposit guarantee
has caused a ight o capital rom thenon-bank sector. The higher cost o lending
has also impacted the non-bank lending
sector, which saw Westpac swallow Rams
Home Loans in 2007 and Commonwealth
Bank take a 33 percent stake in Aussie Group
in 2008.
It is anticipated that urther consolidation
in the sector will continue, with Wizard
being the latest brand to be acquired by
Aussie Group. As the banking and nance
market continues to suer, brand portolio
management will become a greater
challenge or a number o companies.
Nevertheless, despite the nancial crisis,
Australian banks are among the best
capitalised and highest rated in terms o
credit quality, and they continue to reinorce
their reputation as some o the strongest
banking brands in the world.
Macquarie Group, one o the ranking
standouts, has exhibited considerable
growth and resilience with its innovative
investment banking model. The model
provides signicant opportunity or
expansion o the brand into new nancial
products and overseas investment markets.
Local challengers Babcock & Brown,
Allco Finance Group and MFS (re-branded
Octaviar) have not proven as resilient.
Retailing
The Australian retail sector, including
anumberofmajordepartmentstore
and grocery brands, has also undergone
signicant changes. The perormance o
the sector has generally been very robust.
However,morerecently,protforecasts
have been hit by a collapse in consumer
sentiment and the revised 2009 - 2010economic outlook.
Coles Myer has been disbanded, now that
Myer has been purchased by private equity,
and the remainder o the Coles Group
business and associated brands have been
sold to Wesarmers.
Woolworths has gone rom strength to
strength, capitalising on the management
and ownership changes o its major rival,
while also taking the opportunity to re-crat
its visual identity and solidiy its superior
brand proposition.
David Jones has made great strides amidst
the turmoil o the Coles Myer divestiture.
It is now enjoying the spoils o consistent
investment in its store ootprint and
environment, and it is securing key premium
and luxury brands to cement its leading
position as the House o Brands or
Australian department store shoppers.
The eective use o Australian supermodels
Megan Gale and Miranda Kerr has also
reinorced David Joness premium brand
positioning in the ongoing Australiandepartment store wars.
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Like Coles, Myer is currently in a turnaround
phase and is expected to challenge its
major rival David Jones with prot in 2007
up 40 percent ater a number o years o
underperormance. Myer has ought to
maintain its quality positioning, with a ocus
on youth and a broadening o its product
oer to encourage mainstream appeal.
The consumer retail sector, however, remains
under considerable pressure.
As levels o consumer demand continue to
deteriorate, the shit to provide greater value
to consumers will be key to David Jones and
Myer maintaining growth. To do so without
compromising the premium positioning that
distinguishes them rom the likes o Target
and smaller high street retailers will be just as
critical to their continued success.
The Best Australian Brands table has also seen
the emergence o JB Hi-Fi and the continued
dominance o home appliance and electrical
goods retailer Harvey Norman.
A high Australian dollar and continued
marketing support o the brand during the
past our years have seen Harvey Norman
expand aggressively both in Australia and
overseas. Its prots reect consumer desire
or the latest in electrical goods, advancements
in computer technology and the aordability
o imported households items. Harvey Norman,
like all retailers, continues to ace the stress o
the economic downturn and must continue
to build the value proposition o its oering
to customers.
JB Hi-Fi, a newcomer to the Best Australian
Brands table, has proven a surprise competitor
to Harvey Norman. Its brand positioning
as a discount but expert music and electrical
goods retailer has insulated the brand rom
the harshest aects o the slowdown.
Stretching the brand, rom music and MP3
players into home entertainment, andcontinuous expansion into other household
goods has also widened its appeal and
mitigated some earnings risk.
JB Hi-Fi sales rose by an impressive 43 percent
to A$ 1.8billion in 2008. Ater an impressive
rst hal in 2009, there is urther prot growth
orecast despite the deterioration o consumer
sentiment and the potential that Australia
may enter a period o recession.
Airlines and travel
The airline industry is tough and volatile.
Qantas, Flight Centre and Virgin Blues
ortunes have all been heavily reliant
on the previously buoyant domestic and
international economic conditions.
Due to the difculties in accurately assessing
the brand value o airlines based upon
publically available inormation, Qantas,
Jetstar and Virgin Blue have been excluded
rom nancial analysis in our study.
Nonetheless, Australian airline brands playan important role and we have included them
in our commentary. In recent times, we have
seen the industry recover rom global security
and health threats. Combined with a strong
local economy, this has propelled the expansion
o the business and leisure travel markets.
Previously buoyed by a rise in the Australian
dollar, the industry has beneted enormously
rom increased discretionary spending.
Qantas has been able to capitalise signicantly
on its dual-brand strategy in this period.
Now Qantas plans to withdraw rom the
NZ domestic market, but will instead launch
Jetstar with a eet o new A320s, ying
more routes than Qantas was servicing in
competition with Air NZ and Pacic Blue.
Jetstars low cost base could well place
extreme pressure on the other carriers.
The introduction o new-to-market brands
Jetstar, Tiger and V Australia has also
created more options or Australian domestic
and overseas travelers, resulting in an
increase in routes and a reduction in ares.
The rise in competition has driven a visible
dierentiation, creating a clear low, middleand premium segmentation to service the
needs o consumers.
Qantas has since overhauled its rst and
business class lounges, and modernised its
eet with the acquisition o new Boeing 787s
and Airbus A380s designed to improve
patronage and reduce long-haul uel costs.
Qantas has also revitalised its visual identity
through a rebrand to complement these
investments in premium travel acilities.
At the height o the oil spike in 2008, high
uel prices worked to decimate Virgin Blues
prot, which was down 55 percent rom2007. Qantas was able to weather the storm
with prot up by 44 percent, and holiday
and travel services provider Flight Centre
improved by 38 percent year on year.
Television media
Australias three large commercial networks
have undergone signicant changes in their
structure and operating environments.
In particular, the Nine Network is no longer
under the control o the Packer empire.
Its Publishing and Broadcasting Limited
business was broken up and the majority
o the media assets including the television
stations sold into private equity through
PBL Media.
Similarly, the Seven Network has experiencedmajor corporate structural change, with
Seven Media Group ormed in a joint venture
with private equity to house its television,
magazine and internet interests.
Media ragmentation, technological advances
and the changing viewing habits o mass
audiences have drastically altered the way
people consume inormation and, specically,
advertising and brand communications.
The advent o online media and digital content,
and the need to converge and integrate
old media with the new have also created
innovative partnerships linking Seven with
digital platorm Yahoo! and similarly Nine
with Microsot.
Ten has continued with its strategy to target
youth, while the ratings decline at the Nine
Network has resulted in the Seven Network
taking the coveted number one position.
As consumer spending continues to slow,
media industry cash ows are expected to
ollow suit as the reduction in advertising
revenues begins to bite. The slowdown has
already aected the earnings o one majornetwork, with Network Tens prot alling
by approximately 25 percent.
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Best Australian Brands 2009
2009
RankBrand Sector
2009 Brand Value
A$ Million
1 Telecommunications 9,700
2 Banking / Financial Services 7,100
3 Banking / Financial Services 5,100
4 Banking / Financial Services 4,800
5 Retail 4,600
6 Banking/Financial Services 3,200
7 Banking/Financial Services 3,100
8 Apparel 2,200
9 Banking/Financial Services 1,900
10 Retail 1,300
11 Postal and Logistics 900
12 Retail 760
13 Retail 670
14 Travel 630
15 Gaming 560
16 Manuacturing 500
17 Share Registry Services 380
18 Utilities 220
19 Retail 190
20 Banking/Financial Services 150
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9,700 A$m 7,100 A$m
5,100 A$m
NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK (NAB) is one
o Australias largest banking and nancial
services organisations. NAB provides a broad
range o comprehensive and integrated
nancial products and services through its
various units. These include NAB with MLC
in Australia, Bank o New Zealand, Clydesdale
and Yorkshire banks in the UK, and NABCapital
in its global institutional markets and services
business. Ater the negative publicity generated
during the trading and board scandals o 2004,
NAB has aggressively sought to reposition the
brand to counteract any lingering reputation
and image challenges. In 2006, the new NAB
brand identity was unveiled with a renewed
ocus to reurbish branches, retrain and
engage sta, improve services and introduce
new and more competitive nancial services
and products. Accompanying communicationscampaigns sought to breakdown even urther
the bureaucracy and previous negative
associations in the bank, reecting the brand
journey o an organisation ghting back rom
adversity. These changes have allowed NAB to
become more approachable, open and riendly
to sta, suppliers, government and consumers.
Further reinorcing this re-positioning, NABs
current A$ 32.6 million marketing expenditure
involves major advertising campaigns such
as Climb Evry Mountain and nab a small
word or a big lie have continued to build
afnity with consumers. NABs investment
in sponsorship with the AFL and 2006
Commonwealth Games also contributed
to introducing NABs positioning changes
successully, engaging stakeholders and liting
its brand health measures. More recently,
NAB has suered a number o write-downs
associated with its exposure to the global
credit crunch, recording its rst negative
result since 2004, with the 2008 group result
taking a substantial hit rom a A$ 2.7 billion
provision or bad debt. As economic conditions
and nancial markets continue to deteriorateand hamper the perormance o all the major
banks, NAB and its contemporaries will need
to position themselves strongly or the
expected tough times that lie ahead.
1 2
3
Australias Best Brands 2009
TELSTRA. Since the ull T3 privatisation in
2006, Telstra has identied a large opportunity
or uture growth in the Australian
telecommunication industry. Telstras vision
is to build on and enhance its position as the
leading ull service telecommunications and
inormation Service Company in Australia, as
well as to expand its presence internationally.
Telstra has orged a path or itsel as the clear
brand leader in many sectors. It is the only
media and inormation services company
in Australia that provides its customers
with a truly integrated telecommunications
experience across xed line, mobiles,broadband, inormation, transaction,
search and pay TV. Under CEO Sol Trujillos
stewardship, Telstra has continued to exploit
its scale advantage by creating and integrating
partnerships with its sub-brands and various
third parties, including handset providers,
media partners and mobile retailers.
This integrated eort orms the cornerstone
o Telstras transormation strategy to move
customers onto upgraded internet and
wireless phone networks. Mobile advertising
has signicant uture growth potential
with the introduction o WAP and 3G phone
services and the increasing demand or
internet and data transer services on mobile
phones. Telstra reported that mobile service
revenues grew 12.3 percent or the year,
while mobile data growth shot up 44.1
percent. Rich content and data services orm
a key domestic and international revenue
plank or the uture. With ambitions to be
seen as much more than just Australias
largest telecommunications services provider,
Telstra have the opportunity to impact the
lives o all Australians in the wider cultural
landscape, and deepening its inuence by
becoming a global telecommunications orce.
CBA. The Commonwealth Bank o Australia
(CBA) remains the number one bank brand in
Australia. CBA has managed to not only hold
o the competition, but continue to build
their brand despite potential threats such as
the slowing economy and ongoing pressure
on banks due to the credit crunch. CBA has
achieved outstanding results through its
continued ocus on delivering products
customers want and a concerted eort by
the brand to improve customer service. This is
backed by a commitment o A$ 580 million over
the next our years to upgrade its technology
systems to improve efciency and service.
While many o the banks struggle to nd
dierentiation, CBA has sought to reposition
itsel and bring its service experience to
lie through the proposition Determined to
be Dierent. With scale and a diversied
business mix core pillars o the groups
oering, in 2008 CBA bought the BankWest
brand rom HBOS as well as a 33 percent
interest in mortgage broker Aussie. CBA
continues to build its strong reputation with
active involvement in the community via high
prole sponsorships such as Cricket Australia,
The Australian o the Year Awards and the
Commonwealth Bank Foundation.
Telstras mobileservice revenuesgrew 12.3 percentor the year,while mobile data
growth shot up44.1 percent.
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4,600 A$m
WOOLWORTHS. Despite the economic
downturn, Woolworths remains in pole
position as Australias largest grocery retailer.
CEO Michael Luscombe has built ormidable
market share and year-on-year sales growth.Woolworths continues to drive a wedge
between itsel and its major rival Coles as
it tries to reinvent itsel or the renewed
challenge ahead. Woolworths not only has
a strong management team and an excellent
reurbishment strategy in place, but it also
has the exibility in its business model that
other competitors do not, to counter the dual
threat o an economic slowdown and the
entry o oreign supermarket competitors.
As the growth o IGA, Aldi and Costco
continues, and the divesting o Coles to
Wesarmers progresses, retail supermarkets
are now competing more aggressively,especially with the trend towards higher
margin own label brand oerings. Woolworths
Home Brand and Woolworths Select have
been a tremendous success in the private
label segment, and store brands will play
a greater role in generating revenues or
the supermarkets during the downturn.
Staple oods and basic commodities are alsonot expected to aect revenues, unlike the
impact o the slowdown in more discretionary
categories. A marketing budget o over
A$ 100 million ensures Woolworths is
well-poised to roll out its rereshed brand
identity across all key customer touch points.
Just as the Saeway brand is phased out in
Victoria, Woolworthss ownership o the
positioning o the resh ood people in this
increasingly competitive retail environment,
will only serve to reinorce its ocus on its
customers. Woolworthss new identity
communicates positive values to customers
with associations to resh, simple, interestingand modern. All o this suggests a more
positive shopping experience and a renewed
ocus on reshness and quality.
5
Oering extendedhours and fexibility
or its customersand sta, its brand-aligned culturewill ensure thatWestpac maintainsits brand leadership.
4,800 A$m4
WESTPAChas maintained its prole and
reputation as one o Australias best
managed and largest nancial services
companies. Remaining steady in the ace
o the global nancial crisis, Westpac
continues to increase its brand value
through maintaining best practice in
corporate social responsibility and its
commitment to customer service.
Oering extended hours and exibility or
its customers and sta, its brand-aligned
culture, under newly anointed CEO Gail
Kelly, will ensure that Westpac maintains
its brand leadership and continues togrow in strength. Recognised as one
o Australias best corporate citizens,
Westpac has won numerous reputation
awards due to its sustainability policies
and corporate social responsibility
practices. With the approved St. George
merger expected to take shape in 2009,
Westpac aims to continue to drive a strong
customer culture and implement
compelling customer segment strategies.
These will serve to continue to generate
revenue and prot growth amidst a very
dierent and challenging banking
landscape. The credit crunch and changing
conditions in the market have also impacted
the key communications messages rom
the banks, prompting them to position
their brands less aggressively around
growth and more conservatively around
saety, stability and security o deposits
and preservation o investment in nancial
products. The St. George merger willservice 10 million customers and create
Australias second largest banking entity.
Westpacs prudent reputations and AA
rating will ensure it can maintain its
strong position as the banking and nance
industry aces urther economic and
nancial headwinds in 2009.
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2,200 A$m
BILLABONG. The board sports clothing
market has experienced phenomenal
growth over the last decade. Billabong has
successully leveraged the brands heritage
and place in Australias unique surng culture
to stretch into new customer segments,
categories and geographies, becoming the
worlds largest surng and board sportsapparel brand. Recent diversication o the
product range into skate and snow categories
will deliver a more stable platorm or growth
providing the strength to combat major
rivals Quicksilver and Rip Curl. Billabongs
consistent strategy o building credibility
by sponsoring major sporting events and
orging relationships with respected sports
stars in the sur, skate and snow segments
has also helped propel the authenticity o the
brand across new generations. By moving
the brands ocus rom the male-dominated
surng culture to board-sports inspiredactivities, innovative unisex liestyle
accessories and leisurewear, Billabong has
been able to engage more diverse consumer
segments and reinorce its position.
A commitment to continual investment in
product design and innovation has also
ensured that the brand has remained both
relevant and contemporary. Billabong has
also aggressively expanded internationally
into North America and Europe, and it is now
becoming increasingly popular in Eastern
Europe in both urban and regional areas.
It may need to manage its exposure to theUS and emerging economies where growth is
expected to slow, however, a lower Australian
dollar will no doubt assist them in their quest.
8
3,200 A$m6
MACQUARIE GROUP is the preeminent
Australian investment banking brand.
Despite the nancial crisis, the collapse
o the investment banking system on
Wall Street, and the plight o its local
rivals, Macquarie continues to thrive
through its brand mantra o innovation
and the diversity o its business model
and operating activities. This unique
mix o business strategy, attracting
and rewarding the best human capital,
and access to nancial markets has
underpinned an extraordinary growth
trajectory. The Macquarie brand hasbeen built upon its expertise, strong
relationships, unique product oering,
and its rising status as a result o consistent
perormances in the nancial services
sector. The Macquarie brand communicates
what it will deliver inspired and
innovative solutions to difcult nancial
problems. In the last number o years,
Macquaries success and its willingness
to prove the doubters wrong has allowed
it to mature into a global investment
banking brand and diversied nancial
services group, providing banking,
nancial, advisory and investment
services to investors, corporations and
governments. Macquaries strength and
reputation has grown as a result o its
ability to match its ambitions with an
innate ability to deliver results and
outperorm sometimes much bigger and
more established international investment
banking rivals. Macquarie Group now
has more than 60 ofce locations across
25 countries, and continues to establish
itsel as a venerable name amongst the
investment banking elite in the worlds
major nancial centres. Macquarie Groupsmodel has, however, come under some
pressure as a result o deteriorating asset
values due the de-leveraging o the global
economy through the nancial crisis.
The test or Macquarie will be to leverage
its hard earned reputation and leadership
credentials in continuing to innovate, while
consolidating the brand in the challenging
and diverse markets it operates. Only time
will tell i Macquarie Group can continue
to withstand the banking and nances
industrys greatest challenge.
The Macquariebrand communicateswhat it will deliver inspired and innovativesolutions to dicultnancial problems.
3,100 A$m
ANZ. Despite the global nancial turmoil
and the merger and acquisition activity o its
nearest rivals Westpac and Commonwealth
Bank, ANZ continues to pursue its long
term strategy o organically growing its
brand ootprint into the Asia- Pacic region.
Through an aggressive expansion in retail
branches and via a number o joint ventures
with Asian banks, ANZs push into the Asian
market is perceived by some to be high risk.
However, growing the brand internationally
could provide ANZ with a major competitive
advantage over its domestic rivals whose
presence is not nearly as strong in the Asianmarket. Despite oshore risks, ANZ is still
eyeing Asia as the source o 20 percent o
earnings over the next ve years ater the
division grew earnings by 52 percent in scal
2008. In order to support its strategy ANZ
has invested in the highest share o voice
o the big our, investing $46.6 million in
marketing and advertising expenditure in
2007. Domestically, ANZ has been prominent
in mortgage lending, securities, margin
lending and institutional banking, however
as the property boom recedes, and economic
conditions generally deteriorate as a result
o the credit crisis, ANZ has suered its rst
prot all since 1998. Furthermore, ANZs
relationships with various securities lending
clients and subsequent bad debt provisions
have caused some harm to the brands
reputation. In responding to the global
nancial crisis impacting on local operations,
ANZ is actively looking to protect its image
by applying a more rigorous and conservative
approach to lending and in its application to
risk management procedures in the uture.
7
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1,300 A$m 900 A$m
HARVEYNORMAN.The previously high
Australian dollar, the explosion in popularity
o personal media devices and the adoption
o digital TV have driven consumers to
electrical goods retailers in their droves.
A commitment to stock the highest selling
brands and a successul ranchise strategy
has enabled Harvey Norman to grow revenues
and increase market share to become
Australias dominant consumer electronics
and homewares retail brand. Harvey
Normans comprehensive product mix,
strong customer value proposition and
aggressive marketing and communicationssupport have consistently delivered superior
brand perormance across the wider market.
However, the alling Australian dollar
and the economic slowdown have aected
the orecast outlook or Harvey Norman.
As a well-known counter-cyclical advertiser,
typically increasing ad spend during times
o slowdown in order to gain market share,
Gerry Harvey has revealed he is to cut his
A$ 300 million marketing and advertising
budget by at least 20 percent and he is to
close a number o under-perorming stores.
All this could spell harder times ahead or
the retailer.
AUSTRALIA POST. A exible and diverse
business model has allowed Australia Post
to address the threat o electronic
communication and declining traditional
post volumes by ocusing on growth
rom the globalisation o small business.
By staying at the oreront o innovation
in the post and logistics industry, Australia
Post has been able to maintain its brand
leadership in Australia and end o the threat
o larger global business logistics competitors.
At the same time, Australia Post has also
broadened the scope o its oering. With the
acquisition o Star Track Express, AustraliaPost has expanded its non-core services
and continued to enjoy strong results.
Post Logistics has emerged as another
source o high growth or its B2B services
division. However, the collapse o Australia
Posts extension Post Bill Pay damaged
the brands credentials in the internet
services market. As a ubiquitous brand
in Australia attempting to modernise its
persona, the recent Part o Everyday
campaign has positioned the brand as more
contemporary and relevant, breathing new
lie into the Australia Post brand.
10 111,900 A$m
ST. GEORGEs commitment to service,
personal attention and the development o
close relationships with customers is one o
its main competitive advantages compared to
the big our banks. These strengths include
a track record o positive credit quality, high
sta engagement ratings relative to the
industry, and excellent product management
and innovation capabilities. St. George also
strives to play a positive role in the
community by supporting charities, the arts,
sporting clubs, business programs and
disaster relie initiatives. While St. George and
Westpacs merger will create one o Australiaslargest nancial services companies or
customers, shareholders and employees, the
challenge post merger will be to ensure that
the St. George brand maintains its unique
positioning. It must continue to live up to
its reputation as the riendly bank next door
through its Good With People, Good With
Money position. The strategy to be big but
look small in the eyes o customers has been
St. Georges key strength, with the brand
claiming that superior customer service and
a personal approach to business will remain
as the St. George brand continues to operate
as a separate brand entity. St. George also
hopes to grow organically across Australia
while harnessing the potential in its existing
brand strengths and capabilities. The global
nancial crisis and the roll-on impact o
a slowing Australian economy are also
negatively aecting the banking market,
with the ability to supply quality credit
steadily deteriorating and threatening the
long term viability o a number o smaller
competitors. Now that St. George is part o
Westpac, and with consolidation expected to
continue in the banking and nance industry,
to sustain its growth ambitions it will bemore important than ever or St. George to
keep its unique identity and not be seen by
consumers as just part o the big our.
9
The strategy tobe big but to looksmall in the eyeso customers has
been St. Georgeskey strength.
760 A$m12
DAVID JONES has reinorced its position
as Australias premium department store
brand. The brand has achieved this
position via an unwavering ocus on
supplying high calibre branded products,
providing excellent customer service, and
consistently communicating its rst class
status and leading reputation or quality.
Through this strategy, David Jones has
built higher margins by oering exclusive
supply deals with premium brands and by
investing in current and new stores to
create a more luxurious retail brand
experience. To consolidate its position,
the retailer has successully established
exclusive supply agreements with over
50 new brands, some o which were
previously stocked at major rival Myer.
The use o Australian supermodels
Megan Gale and Miranda Kerr as David
Jones brand ambassadors has also
reinorced David Joness credibility
and premium brand positioning in the
ongoing Australian department
store wars. David Jones has dominated
the competitive retail environment
in recent years and it has delivered
strong year on year store sales growth.
With the Australian economy
experiencing an economic downturn,
it will be challenging or David Jones
to sustain such high historical growth,
however, the brand is well positioned
to maintain its leadership status.
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630 A$m
FLIGHTCENTRE. Unpredictable events
such as threats to global security, rising oil
prices, economic volatility and uctuations
in exchange rates have always hampered
the global and domestic travel industry.
However, Flight Centre has continually
emerged rom these threats to be the leading
provider o travel solutions through its
commitment to demonstrating its lowest
airares guaranteed value proposition
alongside its exible and responsive business
model. Flight Centre was quick to recognise
the movement o customers researching and
paying or travel services on the internet.
As consumers migrated online, Flight Centre
has capitalised on the growth o its customer
base in Australia and overseas through an
innovative combination o retail and online
brand strategies. Extensive employee
training programs have resulted in Flight
Centre becoming an employer o choice,
voted as one o the best 100 places to work.
Its A$ 2.4 million investment in adventure
travel brand Intrepid has allowed it to enter
the niche travel