Top 100 - Wamda.com

53 BrandZ Top 100 2011: SECTORS/COMMENTARYBrandZ Top 100 2011: SECTORS/COMMENTARY 54Standard Chartered Bank, a UK-based institution, earnedthe majority of its profits from emerging markets and wasminimally exposed in North America and Europe. It grew45 percent in brand value. HSBC enjoyed the efficienciesand risk balance provided by its extensive global network.Benefits from the acquisition of Wachovia continued toaccrue for Wells Fargo. Brand value almost doubled.Chase had a head start coming out of the recessionbecause the bank went into it less exposed to debt.Meanwhile, Citi and other banks moved beyond viewingtheir customers according to traditional demographiccategories. Instead of focusing on income, the banksorganized offerings around attitudes and interests.Citi marketed to a group it calls “generations forward,”young aspiring people defined by post-recession valuesthat include taking responsibility for their personal welfareand the world’s.Bank of America continued to recover from the globalfinancial crisis and its acquisition of Merrill Lynch.Despite its strength in fast-growing Latin Americamarkets, the Spanish bank Santander was hurt by resultsfrom its European operations.American Express posted strong profits as consumersand businesses returned to spending and morecardholders paid balances in full each month. Brandvalue rose 23 percent. The post-recession consumer shiftaway from credit to cash and debit cards forced creditcard companies to rethink their business models. Visa’s“life flows better,” campaign suggested that the cardhelps the user move through life more easily. The brandincreased 15 percent.FINANCIALINSTITUTIONSIN 2011Mich Bergesen, Global Director,Financial Services, LandorOffering real value“There’s an opportunity for banks now to puttheir money where their mouths are, in termsof focusing on responsible lending and offeringreal value on their products and services.”FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONSHIGHLIGHTSBanks excelled at using digital fortransactional needs, such as online banking,but lagged in brand-building social mediaapplications.Investment banks especially struggled withpost-crisis issues of reputation and trust.While customers often engaged with smalllocal institutions for checking and othertransactional services, they generally kepttheir savings in the large institutions viewedas too big to fail.SPOTLIGHTRussia’s Sberbank appeared for the firsttime in the BrandZ Top 100 Most ValuableGlobal Brands on the strength of a successfulinitiative to transform it into a friendly bankof choice rather an institution recalled for itsdominating presence during the Soviet periodand a heritage dating to 1841. A programcalled “Leading the Change in Russia,”updated the brand and emphasized itsnational reach with almost 20,000 branches.In 2010, Sperbank accounted for almost 40percent of the banking sector’s profits inRussia, compared with 29 percent in 2007.Fees and commissions drove net incometo increase by a factor of 7.4 to roughly $16billion (181.6 billion rubles) in 2010, from $800million (24.4 billion rubles) in 2009.