Bunnings wins 2009 battle of the brands

IN 2002, WA Business News launched its inaugural Western Australian branding survey to find the big brands in the state's marketplace.

Conceived as a one-off piece for the newspaper, the survey gathered momentum in marketing and advertising circles and has now become an annual feature for the publication.

The objective of the survey has always been to discover Perth's senior advertising and marketing people's personal view of brands in Western Australia.

This is notably different to the market research these marketing and advertising professionals undertake as part of their general consumer research of brands and branding.

Seven years ago, BankWest emerged as the market leader in the battle of the brands, taking out the top spot from Bunnings Warehouse and Peters & Brownes.

In this, the eighth year of the survey, there have been some significant results and interesting trends seen to be developing in the local branding landscape.

Both BankWest, now owned by Commonwealth Bank, and Peters & Brownes slipped down the rankings.

New Zealand dairy exporter Fonterra Co-operative Group recently sold its Peters ice cream brand to Nestle and Bulla Dairy Foods. Fonterra kept the Brownes brand in its stable of dairy products but the classic WA dairy brand failed to get a guernsey in this year's top 10.

Top of the pops this year was Bunnings Warehouse, stepping up to the top rung after spending the past five years playing second fiddle, a role it has been familiar with since the inaugural survey.

While the top-ranking brand from the survey is regarded as WA's best brand, which was previously titled 'WA's most recognised brand', this year's survey featured six other categories, including WA's 'most underperforming brand'.

BankWest was rated as WA's most underperforming brand by the state's marketing and advertising elite, with suggestions recent issues of ownership may have had a negative effect on the bank's brand.

The curious aspect is that BankWest also received enough positive feedback from survey respondents to cement itself in sixth place on the best brand list. Most contributors and commentators put this down to its unyielding position as a classic state-based brand.

Meanwhile, Bunnings Warehouse parent company, Wesfarmers, also fared well in this year's survey beyond the branding success of its chain of giant hardware outlets.

In a time of fluctuating markets and poor consumer sentiment, Wesfarmers has continued to perform well across its various platforms leading to the listed entity taking out top honours in the 'best corporate brand' category.

This forced last year's corporate brand leader, Fortescue Metals Group, down the list. In fact, FMG was pushed so far down from the top position it ended up outside of the top five corporate brands in WA. Although at the final count, FMG wasn't too far away from the action.

While Wesfarmers moved up from second spot in the 'best corporate brand' category this year, it fell from top spot in the 'best employer brand' rankings, resigned to second place in this year's results.

Best employer brand was instead taken out by oil and gas giant Woodside Petroleum, a jump from fourth in the last year's rankings.

'Best personal brand' was another new inclusion in this year's survey and was dominated by Fiona Stanley, a former Australian of the year and vocal advocate for the needs of children and families, founding director of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research.

This year's best emerging brand category marked a return of former category winner, Little Creatures, which came fourth in the category last year.

Interestingly, while Little Creatures came in 10th in the overall rankings for best brand last year, the Fremantle-based brewer fell out of the top 10 this time round with some suggesting its focus on expansion may have diluted its local branding power.

'Best rebranding campaign' was the final category and, although a fiercely competitive sector, Murdoch University was the clear winner.