MARKETING
How much is an insurance firm’s brand worth?
The value of a brand is important to a company’s future. While newer tech-focused players’ brands keep rising in value, such as Google, Apple and Amazon, traditional insurance firms are still holding strong. Patrick Brusnahan writes
The BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2019 is not very surprising at the top.
According to BrandZ, the top 100 brands in the world have a combined value of $4.7trn.
At the top of the pile is Amazon with a £315.5bn brand value, 52% higher than it was worth at the same point last year.
It was followed by Apple at $309.5bn and Google with $309bn. Microsoft was 4th with $251.2bn in brand value and our first financial sector player, Visa, is at 5th with a brand value of £177.9bn.
The most improved brand value over the course of the year was social media platform Instagram. It increased its value by 95% and hit $28.2bn.
top10 risers
Brand Value 2019 ($m)
Rise
28,205
95%
Lululemon
6,921
77%
Netflix
34,290
65%
Salesforce
26,917
58%
Adobe
27,930
57%
Shiseido
5,986
56%
Amazon
315,505
52%
Uber
24,206
51%
22,816
46%
Chipotle
6,201
40%
Source: BrandZ
Insurance brand values
Insurance as a sector performed well overall. Insurance’s total category value increased by 15% year-on-year, the third highest increase recorded. It was beaten only by retail (25%) and luxury (29%). It is now valued at $125.2bn.
Over the last 13 years, insurance’s brand value has increased by 258%.
Insurance firm Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) was also one of only nine newcomers to the top 100 brands. It came in at 68th place with a value of $20.3bn.
The firm came second in the BrandZ insurance top 10 2019, behind Ping An, which was valued at $29.5bn and 13% higher than the year before.
Hong Kong-based AIA came in third place and was valued at $16.1bn. In fourth was China Life, which probably would have placed third but its brand value dropped 22% over the year.
These were followed by State Farm ($10.7bn), Geico ($9.3bn), Allianz ($8.3bn), AXA ($6.9bn), Progressive ($6.7bn), and CPIC ($4.5bn).
BrandZ’s report stated that two opposing forces influenced the insurance industry: commoditisation and customisation.
“We’re seeing a lot of multi-policies, at least in the UK, with insurers promising better services and deals for people who insure their car, home, and other aspects of their lives”
In addition, price aggregation dominated in certain markets. As a result, price and transactional relationships are not enough to stick out. A greater connection between insurer and customer is required.
Nigel Birch, senior client director at Kantar, said: “Brands are going beyond the purely transactional relationship. They’re trying to understand people according to their lifestyles and life stages. And brands are looking at the relevant touch points. This change is partly driven by Millennials and Gen Z individuals who don’t want to be sold to, but instead prefer offers that are relevant to their personal circumstances and offer a real benefit.
“We’re seeing a lot of multi-policies, at least in the UK, with insurers promising better services and deals for people who insure their car, home, and other aspects of their lives. I believe we’ll see the next step of this progression, with insurance brands looking at all the aspects of people’s lives that could be insured.”
Anne Hunter, EVP Strategy and Growth at Kantar, Insights Division, added: “Insurance brands are increasing their use of data both in product creation and marketing to more effectively target offers. The trend is toward linking additional datasets with the traditional insurer datasets, such as applications.
“The brands are looking at self-generated datasets, like the trackers that consumers may agree to place in their car, or third-party supplemental behavioural data collected by smartphone apps that is available for purchase. Geo-location data that shows multiple visits to home furnishing stores might indicate a potential candidate for homeowners’ insurance, for example. Some of the life insurance brands have also partnered with Google and Facebook.
“By requiring consumers to log into those social media sites to apply for insurance, the brands may have access to rich data about the applicant.”