Pandemic boosts brand strength of Australia’s retailers 

With consumers spending more time at home, Australian retailers of all stripes have seen aggregate brand value growth of 15% over the past year, according to Brand Finance, with Bunnings emerging as a particularly strong performer.

Brand value 

The 2022 Brand Finance Australia 100 ranking shows retailers outperforming other key players in telecoms and banking, with 16 of the 17 retailers considered recording brand value growth. 

• Supermarkets Woolworths (+9% growth in brand value) and Coles (+26%) are the only retailers in the top ten.
• Other major retailers included Bunnings (+47%), Officeworks (+45%), Kmart (+26%), Priceline (+12%), Reece Australia (+10%), Target (+8%) and Harvey Norman (+5%). 

Brand strength 

Brand Finance also determines the relative strength of brands (through a balanced scorecard of metrics) and finds that four of the top five are retailers. 

• Bunnings is Australia’s strongest brand, scoring 88.5 (+6.8 on 2021) out of a possible 100, followed by Woolworths (86.9, +3.2), Officeworks (86.5, +6.3) and Coles (85.5, +3.0); Kmart (81.7, +0.7) comes in ninth.
• These brands have played an important role in supplying essential household goods during lockdowns as well as office supplies for those people working from home and tools and materials for people embarking on home improvement projects.

Key quote

“Bunnings’ efforts in responding to residential and trade demand along with aiding the vaccination rollout has not gone unnoticed by consumers, who ranked the retailer particularly highly in terms of quality, innovation, value for money, loyalty and customer service” – Mark Crowe, Managing Director of Brand Finance Australia.

Sourced from Brand Finance