India's Top Brands

Marketing guru Peter Drucker once said "Marketing and Innovation produce business results all the rest are costs". Over the years 'Brand value' has acquired a lot of significance, as it helps distinguish great companies from the ordinary. A brand is defined as a name or trademark connected with a product or producer. There are two aspects of a brand: Experiential and Psychological. The experiential aspect consists of the sum of all points of contact with the brand and is known as the brand experience. The psychological aspect, also referred to as the brand image, is a symbolic image created within the minds of people and consists of all the information and expectations associated with a product or service. Creative brand management supported by an innovative advertisement campaign helps the company products/services command a premium in the market. This has lead to brands being given a notional value which forms a part of the intangible assets of the company in its balance sheet.

The recently released edition of India's Most Valuable Brands 2009 (IMVB) study puts Reliance Industries (RIL) at the top, followed by state owned State Bank of India (SBI) and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) in the 2nd and 3rd place respectively. The study conducted by London based brand valuation firm 'Brand Finance' in association with the Economic Times throws up some interesting facts:

• The study has included companies listed on BSE, and has not considered holding companies, hence some important names like Hindustan Unilever Ltd. (HUL) and AMUL have been omitted.
• The valuation is based on 'Relief from Royalty' approach, which assumes that the company currently does not own the brand and how much it would need to pay to license it from a third party.
• The sectoral break up top 50 most valuable brands is: Banks/ Financial institutions (9), Auto/ Auto anciliary (7), Oil & Gas (5), IT (4), Communication (4), FMCG/ Retail (5), Infrastructure (4), Steel Makers (2), Pharma (2), Others (8).
• Despite recession, the brand value of top 50 Indian companies has remained constant at US $67 billion.
• There are 19 companies with a brand value in excess of US$ 1 billion.
• The top 3 companies have brand values of: RIL (US$ 7.8 bn.), SBI (US$ 5.5 bn.), IOC (US$ 4.2 bn.). Brand value of RIL grew by 15% and that of SBI by 30% during the year.
• The biggest gainer is Tata Power (84%) and the biggest loser is Jet Airways (-56%).
• The strongest brand in terms of rating turns out to be Bharti Airtel (overall ranking 7th) with a AAA rating. RIL & SBI have been rated AA+.