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America's Strongest Business-to-Business Brands Named

24 June 1998

Microsoft, UPS and Visa are America's Strongest Business-to-Business Brands, According to New ImagePower Survey

    SAN FRANCISCO--June 24, 1998--Microsoft is the most powerful business-to-business brand in the United States.
    This is one of the key conclusions drawn from the latest ImagePower(R) survey, conducted by global branding consultants Landor Associates and research specialists Louis Harris & Associates.
    According to the results of ImagePower(R), UPS, Visa, AT&T and FedEx follow Microsoft at the head of a field of America's strongest business-to-business brands.
    The rankings are drawn from the ImagePower Index, which is a composite measure combining each brand's strength across five different perception criteria: share of mind (awareness), share of heart (regard), value (value for money), momentum (potential for future growth), and uniqueness/singularity (overall business choice).
    This latest ImagePower survey focuses for the first time on business service brands, following extensive research of brand perceptions among 500 executives.
    According to the ImagePower results, Microsoft heads a ranking of 86 leading business service providers in 12 industry categories, and leads its own category of software companies. Other categories and winners include hotels (Marriott), airlines (Delta), consulting (Andersen Consulting), credit cards (Visa), telecommunications (AT&T), insurance (State Farm), computer hardware (IBM), package delivery (UPS), office equipment (Xerox), car rental (Hertz), and banking (Chase).
    Beyond simply ranking companies, ImagePower also reveals which aspects of a corporate or brand image make it more attractive to decision makers, how attractive these brands are to executives from smaller or larger companies, and how much they appeal to different categories of decision makers, such as marketing or purchasing managers.
    ImagePower also reveals that different factors are rated as more or less important according to the industry in which a company operates. From the data, it is apparent that some companies emphasize aspects of their offer through marketing and promotional activities which may be working against them. For example, reinforcing an image as "providing the best value" may work against a brand in an industry where high regard, not value, is the driver of business choice.
    Within industries like hotels, airlines, package delivery and credit cards, "share of heart," or high regard, is the most influential factor on choice. Conversely, for banking and telecommunications services, executives make their choice on the basis of perceived value for money. In management consulting, "momentum," or perceived potential for future success, is a key determinant.
    When the cross-industry leaders are identified for each attribute, Microsoft tops four of the five categories: those for share of heart, value, momentum and singularity, or overall business choice. Within ImagePower's "share of mind" category, headed by UPS, Microsoft also ranks within the top ten brands. Microsoft, Federal Express, Visa, AT&T and UPS are the only companies to fall within the top ten highest-rated companies for all five attributes.
    Clay Timon, Landor's Chairman and CEO, said: "It's no accident that the top ranked brands in the 1998 ImagePower survey are among the best-known and highest regarded business providers in the United States. Without exception, the leaders in each category have powerful brands that are clearly positioned and articulated to their audiences."
    "The power of a brand, as ImagePower demonstrates, can be defused or enhanced with a variation in just one aspect of its perception," Timon continued. "Being 'top of mind' is not enough to make a business service provider successful. Building a positive holistic perception of a brand is a complex, but necessary process."
    A ranking of America's top 30 brands by ImagePower(R) Index is listed below. For copies of individual industry rankings contained within the survey's Executive Summary, press releases on each industry category, or for more information, please contact David Redhill (415) 955 1403 or Susan Nelson (415) 955 1356 at Landor.

Note to Editors

    Landor Associates is one of the world's largest and most internationally recognized branding consultancies and strategic design firms. Landor comprises a global network of offices, with international headquarters in San Francisco and multidisciplinary consulting and design studios in New York, Seattle, London, Paris, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Mexico City. Marketing offices in other major cities include Miami, Madrid, Milan, Stockholm, Bangkok, Seoul and Taipei.
    Louis Harris & Associates is a leader in the field of survey research and research-based consulting. Harris has a major practice in corporate identity and brand equity, conducting large, on-going corporate image research for some of the nation's best-known companies in the advertising, automotive, banking, insurance, packaged goods, pharmaceutical, transportation, and other industries. Based in New York, Louis Harris & Associates has a global network of affiliates and conducts research in more than 80 countries.
    Landor released the original ImagePower survey in 1988. A subsequent ImagePower was conducted and released in 1990. At the time, ImagePower was the world's most comprehensive study of the power of global and national brands, covering 6,000 brands and 10,000 consumers in the United States, Europe and Japan.
    Following Landor's acquisition in 1989 by the global communications concern Young & Rubicam Inc., ImagePower served as the inspiration for Y&R's creation of its highly regarded BrandAsset(R) Valuator (BAV), the most comprehensive brand assessment study ever undertaken. BAV measures consumers' brand perceptions around the world and is proprietary to Y&R Inc., which makes BAV data available exclusively to its clients. ImagePower has now been attuned to the needs of business to business organizations, with a clear focus on the factors influencing the choices of business executives.