Experts from six WPP companies across the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia share insights in the report.

September 23, 2020:   Kantar announces the inaugural launch of the BrandZ™ Top 30 Most Valuable Emirati and Saudi Brands on 6 October 2020 at a virtual event. The ranking identifies the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia’s Top 30 most valuable brands, based on interviews with+12,000 consumers across the two countries about their opinions on over 300 brands across 19 categories. BrandZ™ then calculates the dollar value of the intangible brand, enabling businesses to assess how much ‘brand’ drives revenue, growth and market capitalisation.

BrandZ™ is the world’s largest and most definitive brand equity study that combines financial and market data with primary research data from consumers on their views about brands. Commissioned by WPP with valuations by Kantar, BrandZ™ has, over the last 15 years, surveyed more than 3.8 million consumers in 51 markets, creating 5.3 billion data points in the process. It reveals the power of the brand in the mind of the consumer that creates predisposition to buy a brand and, most importantly, validates a positive correlation with better sales performance.

In addition to identifying the strengths and weaknesses of a brand, BrandZ™ helps identify worldwide trends and high potential brands in fast-growth markets. The study is trusted by many of the world’s most established financial institutions including Citi Research, which publishes an annual report on how brands drive equity markets, choosing BrandZ™ to power it. BrandZ™ valuations are also fed directly into the Bloomberg terminals, used by over 300,000 of the world’s most influential decision makers. In addition, the Financial Times publishes the BrandZ™ global ranking each year, looking not just at the rankings but alsoour analysis of why the results are what they are.

Brands are becoming increasingly important to CFOs and CEOs, and brand valuation is a metric that quantifies the worth of these powerful but intangible corporate assets. “A strong brand helps differentiate you from your competitors, is a major source of shareholder value and helps protect your business from risk”, comments Amol Ghate, CEO Middle East, Insights Division at Kantar. “It enables brand owners, the investment community and others to evaluate and compare brands and make faster and better-informed decisions.”

Want proof? Two BrandZ™ Portfolios of valuable brands consistently outperform two leading stock market indices, affirming that valuable brands deliver superior returns over time, regardless of market disruptions.

The value of the BrandZ™ Top 10 Most Powerful Brands Portfolio increased 285 percent between April 2006 and April 2020, while the value of the BrandZ™ Strong Brands Portfolio increased 173 percent over the same period. Both BrandZ™ indices outperformed the S&P 500, which grew 120 percent and the MSCI World Index, which grew 46 percent.

In concrete terms, $100 invested in 2006 would be worth $146 today based on the MSCI World Index growth rate, and $220 based on the S&P 500 growth rate. That $100 invested in the BrandZ™ Strong Brands Portfolio would be worth $273. And invested in the BrandZ™ Top 10 Most powerful Brands Portfolio, that $100 would have more than tripled in value to $385.

These results demonstrate the positive return on money invested to build valuable brands. The key takeaways for brand owners and brand marketers: companies that invest in building valuable brands grow theirtopline faster; and organic topline growth is the greatest determinant of total shareholderreturn.

The report includes learnings and recommendations from BrandZ™ experts as well as brand building and thought leadership insights from WPP experts in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia,including Hill & Knowlton,Kantar, Landor & Fitch, MediaCom, Wavemaker and Wunderman Thompson.
The methodology in the BrandZ™ Top 30 Most Valuable Emirati and Saudi Brands report mirrors that which was used to calculate the annual BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands ranking, which is now in its 15th year. The suite of BrandZTM brand valuation rankings and reports currently includes Australia; Canada; China; France; Germany; India; Indonesia; Italy; Japan; Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru); the Netherlands; South Africa; Spain; the UK; and the US.

Keynote speakers at the virtual launch include David Roth, CEO of The Store WPP, EMEA and Asia and Chairman of BrandZ™, who talks about the fusion of technology and creativity, and how this potent combination can be curated to turbo-charge brands; and Doreen Wang, CEO China and the Global Head of BrandZ™, who shares key learnings from the BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brandsand discusses how to build strong and resilient brands in a post-pandemic era.

Nigel Hollis, Chief Global Analyst at Kantar, discusses why brand-led growth requires building out the right perceptions over time, as a big brand is not necessarily a strong brand. He also explainswhat we can all learn from the Top 30 Emirati and Saudi brands of 2020: how disruptive innovation provides the opportunity to shake things up, as this creates a reason for people to switch brands; as well as how to walk the talk,enhancing perception of your brand today to better build for future growth.