Google, Nokia, and perhaps a little predictably, Vegemite, emerged as the winners in a recent survey of Australia’s top brands.

The consumer perception study, conducted every three years by George Patterson Y&R, looked at 1,200 brands across 139 different categories.  The online survey sought the views of more than 4,000 Australian consumers.

Google, in taking this year’s top-spot, moves up from its No. 4 placing in the 2006 study.

The Top 10 Brands were found to be:

      1. Google

      2. Nokia

      3. Vegemite

      4. Microsoft

      5. Sony

      6. Bunnings Warehouse

      7. Ikea

      8. Coca-Cola

      9. Tim Tam

      10. Wii

The Bottom 10 Brands were revealed as:

      1. Investra Property

      2. House of Windsor Foods

      3. Australand

      4. Grazia

      5. Fidelity

      6. Hudson

      7. GE Capital

      8. Theos Bottle Shops

      9. Aurora Coffee

      10. GQ

Four of the biggest losers were clothing brands: Mambo, Stussy, Sportsgirl and Quicksilver, with a number of premium luxury brands, among them watches, jewellery and hotels, suffering too – perhaps as a result of recent recessionary belt-tightening.  The brands of BMW, Citroën and Land Rover in the automotive industry also slipped in the rankings.

The study also tracked consumer trust in brands which, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, has actually increased of late – especially in the service and finance sectors.  Interestingly, among the most-trusted brands are a number of medical/pharmaceutical brands that consumers rely on when they’re not feeling great, with Panadol, Band Aid, Neurofen and Herron ranking in the top 15.

• Banking: The International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, is to lend Yn5m (£450,000) to Renshou Minfu Bank, a village and township bank in Sichuan province, to support microfinance in rural China.

• Insurance: HSBC Life Insurance Company Limited, a joint venture set up by HSBC and the Beijing-based National Trust, opened for business in Shanghai recently, marking the global financial giant’s entrance into one of the world’s fastest-growing life insurance markets.

For more information on our financial market research services in China and Asia, please visit: http://www.b2binternational.com/China/b2bsectors/financial.php 

Sources: CBBC, Xinhua, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, FCO Country Updates and other news sources.

Businesses in India and China command high levels of trust among their domestic consumers, according to PR firm Edelman’s 2009 Midyear Trust Barometer.

The survey was conducted via telephone interview among 1,675 consumers (in the 25-34 and 35-64 age groups) over the summer in six countries: China, France, Germany, India, the United Kingdom and the United States.

At 75%, India recorded the highest level of trust in business out of the countries surveyed.  China followed, with 60% stating they trust business to do what is right.  48% of those interviewed in the United States trust business to do what is right, up from just 36% back in January.  Similarly, France saw a big jump, from 30% to 41%.

Unlike in previous years, when trust in business and in government tended to move in opposite directions, trust in government is now also on the rise, with a 12-point increase in the U.S. (30% to 42%) and a 13-point hike in India (42% to 55%).  Interestingly, 55% feel business hasn’t done enough to co-operate with government to solve the global economic crisis; only 38% lay this claim against government.

Trust in all the major industries surveyed went up across the six countries.  The technology sector is now 15 points ahead of the next most trusted industry – biotech/life sciences.  Banks, automotive, and insurance sectors stabilised during the period with banks being the no. 2 most trusted industry in China and India.  In the U.S.A., trust in every industry – with the exception of technology, which was already very high – experienced double-digit growth.  Trust in the pharmaceutical and auto industries each jumped significantly – from 39% to 53% and from 32% to 46% respectively.

96% of Chinese and 81% of Indians surveyed say their country is ‘headed in the right direction’, compared to 47% in America and Germany, 37% in the U.K. and 31% in France.  Furthermore, almost 70% of those in India and China rate the reputation of large multinationals as good or excellent compared to just 30% of Americans, 29% of Germans, 24% of French and a mere 13% of British.

When asked what companies could do to rebuild trust over the long term, treating employees well (94%), having transparent business practices (93%), maintaining quality products and services (93%), and communicating frequently and honestly (91%) top the list.

The public places great importance on business’s commitment to finding solutions for issues such as global warming, energy costs, and access to affordable healthcare; however, 71%, 70%, and 64% respectively feel business has not done enough to create solutions to these challenges.

Headlines following the latest BrandZ Top 100 report concentrate on Google taking the top, but for observers of Asian brads there are some interesting developments

The Top 10, shown below, contains many of the usual suspects, and unsurprisingly is dominated by Western brands, but China mobile at no 7, features as Asia’s highest ranked brand, down from number 5 last year, but with a higher brand value up from $57.2 billion.:

1.     Google (Technology) - US$100 billion

2.     Microsoft (Technology) - $76.2 billion

3.     Coca-Cola (Food & Beverage) - $67.6 billion

4.     IBM (Technology) - $66.6 billion

5.     McDonald’s (Food & Beverage) - $66.5 billion

6.     Apple (Technology) - $63.1 billion

7.     China Mobile (Telecommunications) - $61.2 billion

8.     GE (Conglomerate) - $59.8 billion

9.     Vodafone (Telecommunications) - $53.7 billion

10.  Marlboro (Tobacco) - $49.5 billion 

In total, six Chinese brands make it into this year’s Top 100 list, and apart form China mobile this is dominated by China’s growing financial giants. Three Chinese financial brands ranked highly in the survey: ICBC (no. 12), China Construction Bank (no. 24) and Bank of China (no. 27) respectively. China Merchant’s Bank, while only making number 80 in the list, was easily this year’s biggest climber, with an estimated increase in brand value of 168%.

In the latest issue of Asia Research, Alaric Fairbanks, General Manager of B2B International in Beijing, talks about setting up and running a market research company in China.  Over the next three blog posts, we will serialize his interview:

Tell me about B2B International

As the name implies, we work in b2b markets and are international.  We are a specialist business-to-business market research company, with our group headquarters in the United Kingdom and subsidiaries in New York and, of course, Beijing.  Our focus is exclusively b2b, and although we cover all b2b markets, we have particular strengths in chemicals, pharmaceuticals, engineering, construction and financial services.  In terms of services, our main focus is on full service research, covering market assessment, segmentation, customer satisfaction, new product development, competitor analysis and pricing studies, and our major clients are multi-national firms engaged in b2b markets.  In Asia we also complement our full service work with data collection.

What were the main challenges when you first set up the business?

We set up permanently here in 2006 and in many ways the challenges we faced when setting up in China were similar to those that many foreign-invested businesses in China, including some of our clients, face.  These include recruiting staff, adapting and integrating systems and working styles into the local conditions, and on a practical level finding reliable partners or suppliers, particularly in areas such as IT and financial services.  I regard these as important challenges to deal with, but the primary issue from day one was, and remains, generating business and delivering quality work.

Look out for Part 2 of the interview in our next blog post.