(Stamford, CT; Business Wire;
August 14, 2001) Business executives in a national
survey rate The Walt Disney Company as the strongest
corporate brand of California-based companies, according
to Corporate Branding, LLC, a global brand strategy and
communications firm.
Toyota, Honda, Hewlett-Packard and
Hilton Hotels had the next strongest brands,
respectively. Rounding out the top 10 slots in the
ranking were The Clorox Company, Intel, Dole Food,
Gateway and Yamaha. The survey focused the brand strength
of 75 publicly traded domestic and international
companies with headquarters in California.
All of brands in the top twenty have
maintained or improved their BrandPower(TM) scores since
the previous year, with the exception of Callaway Golf
whose score has dropped from 38 to 35. Cisco, the biggest
achiever in the group, has a score of 40 in 2000, up from
30 in 1999.
``Corporate brand power is even more
important during a difficult economy than during a good
one,'' says James Gregory, CEO of Corporate Branding.
``Our past studies have proven that 5 to 7 percent of a
company's stock price is determined by the strength of
the brand. When performance is good, a strong corporate
brand will boost the stock performance. When business
conditions are less favorable, a strong brand will help
mitigate the downward movement of the stock price and
enable a company's stock to rebound more readily than the
stock of a weaker brand,'' Gregory said.
Methodology
For the study, Corporate Branding
compiled Corporate BrandPower scores for 75 of publicly
traded companies with headquarters located in California.
Corporate BrandPower, a metric linked to stock price
leverage, gauges the familiarity and favorablity ratings
of a company among senior business decision-makers, a
group defined as vice president level executives and
above at the top 20% of U.S. corporations. Favorability
is comprised of overall reputation, perception of
management and investment potential. Corporate Branding
conducts over 10,000 interviews annually. Over 300
respondents evaluated each company in the study.
The top twenty corporate brands in
California for 2000:
1. The Walt Disney Company
73
2. Toyota Motor Corporation
68
3. Honda Motor Company 65
4. Hewlett-Packard Company
59
5. Hilton Hotels Corporation
58
6. The Clorox Company 57
7. Intel Corporation 56
8. Dole Food Company 55
9. Gateway, Inc. 54
10. Yamaha 52
11. Kinko's, Inc. 52
12. Charles Schwab & Company
52
13. Apple Computer 51
14. Nissan North America Inc.
50
15. The Gap Inc. 48
16. Wells Fargo & Company
43
17. Cisco Systems, Inc. 40
18. Petco Animal Supplies, Inc.
36
19. Callaway Golf Company
35
20. Netscape Communications
Corporation 33
``We expect to see some shifting in
the scores for 2001 because many of the companies with
the strongest brands are experiencing a difficult year.
But the beauty of a strong brand is that it helps
companies to weather the economic storm,'' said Gregory.
Corporate Branding, LLC, specializes
in helping companies measure, understand, craft and
express their corporate brands. Through a propriety
database, The Corporate Branding Index®, the firm has
been tracking the performance of over 1000 corporate
brands for the past decade. Headquartered in Stamford,
Connecticut, with offices in Laguna Beach, California;
New York City; Tel Aviv, Israel and Tokyo, Japan, the
company works with many of the largest and best-known
brands in the world.