RBC remains Canada’s most valuable brand

RBC has once again earned top spot in the Canada’s Most Valuable Brands report by Brand Finance Canada, a biannual study that ranks Canadian brands based on the financial value of a brand trademark.

With a brand value pegged at nearly C$5.4 billion, RBC held on to the No. 1 rank it also owned in the 2007 report.

The repeat performance reflected a strong collective showing for Canada’s banks, five of which ranked in the report’s top 10. TD Canada Trust ranked third with a brand value of almost $4 billion, while Scotiabank took the No. 6 spot, and BMO and CIBC ranked ninth and 10th, respectively. National Bank was 31st.

Manulife also ranked very highly, at No. 4, while Sun Life was the 17th most valuable brand. London Life and Canada Life ranked 25th and 30th, respectively, while Great-West Life was 32nd.

Among asset managers, Investors Group ranked the highest, at 53, followed by its corporate cousin Mackenzie Financial at 57. DundeeWealth’s brand was the 63rd most valuable, while CI Financial ranked 64th.

“I would call it a Canadian success story, at least on a relative basis,” said Andrew Zimakas, managing director, Brand Finance Canada. “The global [banking] sector has been in virtual collapse for the past six to 12 months, and yet, through a combination of regulatory factors, business practices and to some extent the way they’ve managed their brands, Canadian banks have more than held their own and have really gained on the global stage.”

The brand values are determined by forecasting the royalties that would accrue to a brand holding if that company licensed the brand to an operating company.

Overall, the brand value of the top 50 Canadian brands fell to $69 billion from $74 billion, a 7% decline from Brand Finance Canada’s 2007 report.

However, the report claims that brands are actually contributing more to the total enterprise value of Canadian brands.

The economic downturn has caused the enterprise value of the top 50 brands to fall 32% between 2007 and 2008, while the total brand contribution to enterprise value is up from approximately 7% to more than 9%.

“You’ve got enterprise values and market values in general in significant decline over the past 12 months,” said Zimakas. “But you have brands declining less, so if you look at it on a percentage basis, they actually comprise a larger proportion of enterprise values.”

Brand Finance Canada, a partnership Brand Finance PLC and Level5 Strategic Brand Advisors, also issued the results of a survey in which consumers were asked to rate what Zimakas termed the “iconicness” of a selected group of Canadian brands. Canada Post was ranked as the most iconic Canadian brand, followed by Canadian Tire and Tim Hortons.

(05/05/09)