Rethinking Arenas to create iconic brands

Shanghai, China (September 2022) — Interbrand, a leading global brand consultancy, has officially announced its Best China Brands 2022. In 2022, the total value of brands on the overall ranking reached RMB 3.295 trillion, an increase of 9.8% from the total value last year. Six brands valued in the hundreds of billions, of which Tencent, Alibaba and China Construction Bank remained ranking as the top three, with the value of RMB 861.084 billion, RMB 682.279 billion and RMB 189.191 billion, respectively.

Since 2002, Interbrand has been committed to creating and managing brand value for outstanding local and international brands in the Chinese market, as well as providing strategic advice for brands’ local developments from a professional perspective. As the first company to have its methodology certified as compliant with the requirements of ISO10668 (requirements for monetary brand valuation), Interbrand’s brand valuation methodology has always been highly recognized. Along with the evolving era, Interbrand’s methodology has undergone continuous upgrading, and currently it is aligned with the latest international brand assessment standards (ISO20671).

Based on the world’s first brand valuation method, Interbrand’s brand valuation model is based on business profits, taking all value-creating leverages and stakeholders into consideration in revealing how the brands create value. With the release of the 14^th edition of Best China Brands in 2022, Interbrand still adheres to evaluate brands through three key dimensions: brand financial analysis, brand power and brand strength to provide directional guidance for local brands’ future value growth.

The ranking shows that technology and financial brands have maintained their dominant positions for consecutive years, with a total of 24 brands on the list. Among them, Tencent, Alibaba and China Construction Bank remained at the top, achieving steady increases in brand value with growth rates of 15%, 8% and 9%, respectively.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (RMB166.382 billion), Ping An (RMB162.812 billion), Bank of China (RMB118.987 billion) occupied fourth to sixth place. China Mobile (RMB99.238 billion), China Life (RMB91.584 billion), Agricultural Bank of China (RMB91.405 billion) and Moutai (RMB82.380 billion) ranked seventh to tenth respectively.

There were five brands debuted in this year’s Best China Brands. They are BYD (#30), NIO (#43), Nongfu Spring (#45), Li-Ning (#48) and Pien Tze Huang (#49), mainly distributed over new energy vehicles, consumer goods and medical industries. The reason why these brands could achieve such stellar results is not only attributed to their development directions, but also depended on the realization of brand concept through in-depth interactive brand experience. Meanwhile, in the face of the ever-changing market environment, the above new brands also possess the ability to aim higher and further, to see into the future, and to concentrate on future human vision in responding to more complex business challenges.

Within the current climate of “emission peak” and “carbon neutrality,” the new energy vehicle industry has developed rapidly under the national strategy. According to the data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China has reached 3.521 million units in new energy vehicle sales in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 1.6 times, ranking first in the world for seven consecutive years. The strong support of national policies has brought unprecedented opportunities for the new energy vehicle industry and the proportion of new energy vehicles in the overall consumer vehicle market has also grown against the trends. Within Best China Brands 2022, new energy vehicle brands have made outstanding performance in terms of brand value growth.  Among them, BYD and NIO entered the ranking this year as powerful new forces, ranking 30th and 43rd at values of RMB12.423 billion and RMB6.863 billion, respectively.

Aside from the new energy vehicle industry, consumer goods also underwent a new round of growth with continuous optimization and upgrading of the consumption structure in recent years. Anta’s brand value increased by 36%, rising three places to the 17th.

The times always bring about new challenges. “Today, brand competition is entering the second half of an unpredictable game. Brands are no longer limited to conventional competitions within the same industry, but rather stepping into the same Arena and engaging in cross-field competitions based on users’ finite amount of time, attention, and money.” Johnson Gu, Chairman of Omnicom Brand Consulting Group and Interbrand China, said, “In the face of such a trend, incremental changes can only keep brands from falling behind the game. Brands shall cast off the constraints of conventional thinking by ‘category’ and ‘industry’, and look at the mode of industry competition with the Arena mindset. By taking iconic moves, brands can constantly subvert themselves and reshape the market ecosystem, so as to capture the imagination of future users.”

Today, brands from different industries have gradually entered the same Arena. For example, Haier, Huawei and Xiaomi, which all cater to the “home life” needs of people, are building a brand-new ecosystem and providing smarter and more convenient daily life experience to compete in the same field. Each brand is also breaking traditional boundaries in focusing on the needs of people and extending its commercial arms into other Arenas. Ping An established the dual parallel strategy of “comprehensive finance + healthcare,” building the brand into a financial advisor, family doctor and elderly care manager for customers to meet their needs in all areas including comprehensive finance and healthcare.

Echo Zha, the Strategy Director of Interbrand China, added, “For enterprises to achieve sustainable growth, they need to rethink along the concept of Arena, provide meaningful brand experiences, build emotional connections with target audience and establish a deep recognition from the brand value level to create more sustainable brand differentiation advantages, expand the brand’s scope of reach and create an iconic, epoch-making brand.”

About Interbrand

Interbrand has been a world leading brand consultancy, for over 45 years – having pioneered iconic work and forged many of the brand building tools that are commonplace across the industry today.

At Interbrand, we know that in an age of unprecedented abundance of choice and speed of innovation, customers’ expectations are moving faster than business. While incremental change is still essential, it is no longer sufficient. It takes bold moves to leap ahead of customers and competitors. We call these moves Iconic Moves.

In collaboration with the world’s leading brands, our global team of thinkers and makers are pioneering the future of brand building. By turning customers into active participants, we help our clients strengthen their brands on an ongoing basis – our approach gives them confidence to make Iconic Moves that spark desire and create utility, driving extraordinary results.

Interbrand is a part of Omnicom’s Brand Consulting Group, which sits within the Communications Consulting Network.

Group is made up of Interbrand, the world-leading brand consultancy, and C Space, the global customer agency.

Interbrand has been the world-leading brand consultancy, for over 45 years – having pioneered iconic work and forged many of the brand-building tools that are commonplace across the industry today.

We know that in an age of unprecedented choice and speed of innovation, customer expectations are moving faster than business. While incremental change is still essential, it is no longer sufficient. It takes bold moves to leap ahead of customers and competitors. We call these moves Iconic Moves.

In collaboration with the world’s leading brands, our global team of thinkers and makers are pioneering the future of brand building. By turning customers into active participants, we help our clients strengthen their brands on an ongoing basis – our approach gives them the confidence to make Iconic Moves that spark desire and create utility, driving extraordinary results.

Interbrand is a part of the Omnicom Group (NYSE:OMC). For more information, please visit www.interbrand.com.