The most valuable mining brands

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.”