Telecom firm Vodafone has topped Kantar’s list of the most valuable UK brands for the second year running, followed by HSBC, Shell, and BP.
Alcohol brand Johnnie Walker has this year entered Kantar’s top five for the first time, registering impressive 32% growth over the last 12 months, growing its value by £9bn.
Alongside Johnnie Walker, luxury fashion house Burberry was the fastest growing brand in the top 20, increasing its value by 17% to £3.9 billion rising to 15th place.
“What brands like Johnnie Walker, Dove and Burberry do especially well is fundamentally knowing who they are and what they stand for, while adapting to people’s changing behaviours and attitudes,” Kantar Insights UK head of brand consultants, Adele Jolliffe, said.
“We’ve seen some high-profile rebrands this year like Twitter to X and other businesses might be tempted to try something new as inflation bites, but organisations shouldn’t forget the value of the brand equity they’ve built up. This is absolutely not about standing still, but it is about understanding what consumers like about your brand, and protecting and investing in that.”
She continued: “The UK’s year-on-year performance may paint a similar picture to the global trend but if we dig a little deeper into the numbers, UK is lagging in the medium term. UK brands are actually falling behind their global peers and the few success stories are an exception to the rule.
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“Of the eight markets we analysed, UK brands are right at the bottom for how different consumers perceive them to be. We have some incredibly well-known names in this country and they come to mind easily for people, but being familiar isn’t enough to get consumers to put their hands in their pockets and pay the prices brands need to charge to sustain healthy margins.”
Concluding, she said: “It’s going to get more expensive for organisations to borrow to pay for product innovation and development, so they’ll need to generate their own surpluses. Marketing can play a fundamental role in delivering that growth.
“Our data shows that brand – and brand difference in particular – is one of the most powerful tools a business has to justify its pricing. M&S Food is a great example of this.
“It has one of the strongest pricing power scores in its sector thanks to a consistent focus on shaping its reputation as a retailer with a difference. Ultimately, the future stars of marketing will be the people who really understand this link between pricing and brand building, and who use it to their advantage to drive profitability.”
The UK’s largest 75 brand are now worth a collective £200bn, a fall of 14% year-on-year – in line with the global annual trend, which has seen a fall of 20%. Conversely, most valuable global brands have increased their value by 39% since 2020. Although this figure stands at just 6% for the UK.
The media firm’s analysis has also found that the biggest danger that brands faced was an inability to distinguish themselves, with historic retailer Wilko notably paying the price for this in August, losing ground to rivals such as B&M.
