Tata stays India's top brand, RIL second

Brand value of the salt-to-software major remains flat, while Reliance Industries' rises nine per cent

The house of Tata continues to be a leading name for most Indians despite its trials and tribulations, Interbrand’s latest ranking of the country’s leading 40 brands shows. A year after former chairman Cyrus Mistry was ousted from Tata Sons and 10 months after N Chandrasekaran took his place, the Tata brand has retained its number one position on Interbrand’s 2017 list.
 
While this is the fifth straight year of Tata’s reign at the top, its brand value has remained flat, data from the study show. For 2017, Tata’s brand value stood at Rs 73,944 crore versus Rs 74,217 crore a year ago. Other entrants in the Top 10 list this year include Reliance Industries (RIL) at number two (Rs 38,212 crore), Airtel at number three (Rs 36,927 crore), HDFC Bank at number four (Rs 26,205 crore), Life Insurance Corporation at number five (Rs 25,774 crore) and SBI at number sixth (Rs 24,775 crore) respectively.
 
Information technology major Infosys, auto-to-software giant Mahindra, private-sector lender ICICI and diversified conglomerate Godrej are the other players on the Top 10 list, ranked at numbers seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth respectively. Their brand values are Rs 23,291 crore (Infosys), Rs 16,915 crore (Mahindra), Rs 16,165 crore (ICICI) and Rs 15,867 crore (Godrej) respectively.
 
Within the Top 10, it is RIL, HDFC Bank, LIC and Mahindra which have seen a sharp 8-9 per cent increase in brand value this year, Ashish Mishra, managing director, Interbrand India, says. “State Bank of India, on the other hand, has seen a seven per cent increase; Airtel has seen a five per cent increase and Godrej has seen a three per cent rise in brand value,” Mishra says.

Some of the other big gainers in the 2017 list include Maruti Suzuki, Kotak Mahindra Bank and JSW Steel, which have grown between nine and 16 per cent in terms of brand value. Maruti Suzuki, which is ranked 12th, has a brand value of Rs 13,704 crore. Kotak, ranked 29th, has a brand value of Rs 4,280 crore, and JSW, ranked 36th, has a brand value of Rs 2,001 crore.
 
Though ICICI Bank has declined three per cent in terms of brand value in a year and Infosys has risen only a per cent, the top 10 brands, Mishra says, still contribute 63 per cent in terms of overall value to the top 40 list this year, which is huge.
 
“This is a jump of 8-10 per cent over last year and highlights the importance of focused branding and communication. The latter helps improve perception and understanding of a brand, impacting its overall value,” Mishra says.
 
The annual study, which does a detailed financial and brand analysis of the country’s top names before arriving at their economic worth, also has two new entrants this year in Royal Enfield and Ambuja Cement. Auto major Royal Enfield, known for its sturdy bikes, is ranked 17th in the 2017 list, with a brand value of Rs 9,078 crore. Ambuja Cement debuts at 40 with a brand value of Rs 1,518 crore.
 
Gonzalo Brujo, chief executive officer of Interbrand’s Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) & Latin American operations says a country’s top brands’ list indicates the state of its economy and where it is headed. “The growth of RIL’s brand value, for instance, has happened on the back of Jio, pointing to the growing need for telecommunication and how Indians are willing to keep pace with it,” he says.
 
In the last one year, Reliance Jio has disrupted the telecom market in India, offering affordable 4G data services and notching up nearly 100 million subscribers in the process. It has since then announced the launch of 4G-enabled feature phones that will be delivered to consumers by the end of this month.
 
Airtel, while slipping to number three in the 2017 list from number two last year, has withstood Jio’s disruptive tactics by launching aggressive offers as well as a high-decibel ad campaign, Mishra said.
 
Brujo says that big Indian groups, perceived as being largely traditional, will have to transform themselves if they wish to compete in the world. “India is one market where diversified conglomerates such as the Tatas, Mahindras and the Godrej group figure prominently in the list of leading brands. The other markets where I see this trend playing out is Korea (Samsung) and the US (Amazon),” he says.
 
“While diversification as a business strategy has its merits, as a brand strategy, multiple messages from different business units within a group can lead to confusion. It is important to identify a clear roadmap and integrate communication,” he says.