It Were the Financial Brands Which Suffered Most in Past One Year

Financial brands during the period of one year were hit most as international brands like UBS and Citi were slashed to the half of their capacity. According to the Business Week/Interbrand 2009 Best Global Brands Study, American Express was the biggest financial brand in the index, but it fell from number 15 to number 22, against a 32% fall in the value of its brand.

Citi, one of the banks that had to be bailed out by the US government, saw its place in the list tumble from 19 to 36. UBS lost 50% of the value of its brand to drop to 712 in the list, compared with 41 last year.

JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs managed to hold on to their rankings of 37 and 38 respectively, in spite of both seeing the value of their brands drop.

The downturn in the automotive industry is also reflected in the list. Harley Davidson was worst hit, losing 43% of its brand value to drop from 50 in the list to 73. Apart from General Motors, which is not in the list because it trades under different brands, most companies saw a fall in their valuation, including Toyota, Ford and Honda?

Yesterday Toyota said it planned to spend $1bn on marketing in the US over the next quarter, with an emphasis on promoting its hybrid Prius. This figure is reportedly as much as 40% more than Toyota would usually spend on marketing in a quarter. Below is the complete list of brand indexing as observed in the market survey?