The value of the world's top 75 retail brands has grown by 12 per cent to $1.5 trillion in the past year, according to the third annual BrandZ Top 75 Most Valuable Global Retail Brands Ranking unveiled recently by WPP and Kantar. The report provides an indication of the brands that are most likely to prevail in a post-novel coronavirus market.
It was launched in conjunction with the World Retail Congress in London.The value of the world's top 75 retail brands has grown by 12 per cent to $1.5 trillion in the past year, according to the third annual BrandZ Top 75 Most Valuable Global Retail Brands Ranking unveiled recently by WPP and Kantar. The report provides an indication of the brands that are most likely to prevail in a post-novel coronavirus market.#
The top retailers in the 2020 ranking include Amazon (No. 1, $415.9 billion), which is managing demand and reducing its speed of delivery to prioritise key products; Alibaba (No. 2, $152.5 billion), whose subsidiary Ali Cloud used its artificial intelligence expertise to help medics in China significantly shorten the coronavirus diagnosis time; Louis Vuitton (No.5, $51.8 billion), whose parent company LVMH took only 72 hours to convert its production lines to make hand sanitiser; and Chinese ecommerce brand JD (No. 13, $25.5 billion), which delivered medical supplies and food using its extensive distribution network.
Athletic apparel company Lululemon (No. 25, $9.7 billion) grew by 40 per cent to become the ranking's highest riser. Its current activity includes offering online training programmes, a purposeful marketing tactic to keep it front-of-mind that has also been adopted by Adidas (No. 18, $14.8 billion), according to a press release from BrandZ.
Otherwise the fastest riser category is dominated by pure retail as grocery outlets see a boom in demand as people stock up.
Unsurprisingly, the digital-native brands scored highly. Amazon, JD and Alibaba were up 32 per cent, 24 per cent and 16 per cent respectively, but physical retail veterans also showed their ability to adapt to an online-only environment. Costco (No. 11, $28.7 billion) grew by 35 per cent, Target (No. 23, $10.6 billion) was up by 27 per cent, Walmart (No. 8, $45.8 billion) increased by 24 per cent and Sam's Club (No. 36, $6.8 billion) rose by 19 per cent.
Smart retailers are also resisting the temptation to cut back on advertising investment, learning lessons from China where brands that 'went dark' are struggling to reconnect during the early stages of recovery as consumers opt for those that actively demonstrated support, BrandZ said.
ALCHEMPro News Desk (DS)
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