Australian miner BHP has
unseated Glencore as the most valuable brand in mining, according to
research from Brand Finance.
BHP “struck gold” with its
major 2017 re-branding exercise, a report on the research explained,
with the company’s brand value rising by 29 per cent to $US5.1
billion, pushing it well above Glencore ($US3.7 billion) on the Brand
Finance Mining, Iron & Steel 25 league table.
In May 2017, BHP launched the
“Think Big” campaign, which involved rebranding from BHP Billiton to
BHP. The rebranding not only increased BHP’s brand value in Brand
Finance’s latest research, but also bolstered its Brand Strength Index
(BSI) score from 73.2 to 74.3.
The brand value is equal to a
net economic benefit that a brand owner would achieve by licensing the
brand, whereas brand strength is used to determine what proportion of
a business’s revenue is contributed by the brand, according to Brand
Finance.
Glencore’s brand value
dropped by 11 per cent in 2017 due to the significant fall in brand
strength, from 62.9 to 55.3, caused in part by its association with
the Paradise Papers released during November.
Rio Tinto improved two spots
to fourth on the league table, behind South Korea’s Posco, with a 25.4
per cent increase in brand value to $US3.1 billion. Brand Finance said
Rio enjoyed strong brand value growth alongside higher iron ore prices
driven by a lift in demand in China.
Brand Finance chief executive
David Haigh said after the 2014 metal price crisis, caused by a drop
in demand for raw materials in China, the industry was once again
being shaped by the Chinese market.
“The country’s demand for
higher-quality iron ore imports is benefiting the industry’s largest
brands such as BHP and Rio Tinto,” Haigh said.
“Challenger brands will need
to define their competitive advantage to capture a greater proportion
of the ever-growing Chinese market.”
The world’s most valuable mining,
iron and steel brands (source: Brand Finance):