And the best bank brand in the world is … Chinese

Fascinating report in the FT this week about Global Brands, with the financial sector bouncing back the strongest of all. MasterCard and Visa led the financial pack, although Goldman Sachs saw a 25% growth in brand value over the last year ... I wonder how much they lost this year?

Anyways, considering banks had the worst results ever last year and lost all brand momentum, it’s no surprise I guess to see they’ve bounced back this year, and even beat beer as a sector for brand improvements:

Year-on-year growth in 17 categories
Category                      Brand value growth (%)

Financial Institutions             12%
Beer                                     10%
Technology                            6%
Fast Food                              1%
Retail                                   -1%
Soft Drinks                           -1%
Mobile Networks                   -1%
Bottled Water                       -2%
Gaming Consoles                  -3%
Spirits                                 -3%
Luxury                                 -3%
Apparel                                -4%
Personal Care                       -4%
Coffee                                 -6%
Insurance                             -7%
Cars                                   -15%

Source: Millward Brown Optimor (including data from BrandZ, Datamonitor and Bloomberg)

Strange how and why insurance is languishing down the bottom though ... maybe it's their lack of ability to cover Toyota's these days, which is why the car sector sits at rock bottom.

All in all, a big contrast between this and the Harris Interactive Reputation Survey I blogged about earlier this month ... so brands and reputation have nothing to do with each other, do they?

What surprised me is the list of the top 10 brands in our sector (doubleclick picture to enlarge):

Wow! ICBC from China, the #1 bank brand in the world!

In fact, they’re the 11th best brand in the world, just behind Google and Apple:

A great report from the FT again, and well worth a read if you have the time ...