Brand Strength Revealed in Two Global Studies

Two new global reports released this week look at the impact of brand strength on perceived Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) performance and ‘green’ corporates.

Automotive and consumer technology brands have topped a new ranking list of the top 50 global green brands.

Interbrand’s third annual Global Green Brands Report saw automotive companies occupy five places in the top 10, including Toyota at the top of the list.

Led by Panasonic at number four, consumer technology brands were the most dominant in the top 50 overall.

The global branding consultancy collated the top 50 green brands based on positive sustainability performance in terms of both consumer perception and actual sustainability performance.

Comparison of the two factors was also used to value the gap between what consumers think and a brand’s actual performance, providing an understanding of which brands are overrated and underrated in terms of their sustainability efforts.

McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Ikea and Kellogg’s topped the list of those perceived to be more green than they actually were.

Brands whose sustainability efforts were least reflected with positive perception levels included Nokia, L’Oreal, Panasonic, Xerox and Cisco.

Interbrand drew the pool of brands evaluated for the study from their annual Best Global Brands Report, which listed the world’s 100 most valuable brands according to global presence and record delivering to stakeholders.

Actual sustainability performance was assessed using data compiled by Deloitte based on publically available information, while perception was measured through a consumer study covering over 10,000 respondents with a minimum of 1,000 in each of the ten largest economies.

The 2013 Best Global Green Brands

1. Toyota
2. Ford
3. Honda
4. Panasonic
5. Nissan
6. Johnson & Johnson
7. Volkswagen
8. Danone
9. Nokia
10. Dell

Brand strength increasingly linked to CSR performance

A new study by CSRHub suggests 28% of brand strength is linked to changes in perceived CSR performance.

According to the US based CSR ratings organisation, the strength of that correlation doubled in 2012 over 2011 figures.

The study compared five years of data from the BrandFinance Brand Strength Index and CSRHub’s sustainability performance rating system.

The correlation was established looking at data sets on 1000 companies from 97 industries in 54 countries.

CSRHub’s sustainability rating system uses data from 230 sources to aggregate 12 different measures of corporate social responsibility.

The standalone correlation for each of these measures was highest for employee related issues (15 to 18% correlation) and environment policy and reporting (17% correlation).

CSRHub co-founder Cynthia Figge unveiled the figures in her Plenary Speech at the Sustainable Brands conference this month.

“Perhaps we are reaching critical mass. Consumers are more aware of sustainability,” Figge said during her address.

“There is dramatic ROI [return on investment] for sustainability. And that ROI is increasing rapidly. My take is that companies see sustainability as the breakthrough platform for strategic advantage. After strategic sustainability consulting for 17 years, I believe we may be at the edge of a big shift,” she said.