Special Report: Brands on the rise

RAC has achieved top ranking for the second year running in the annual WA Business News branding survey.

Flicking through the professional recruitment pages, its clear to see the intense competition for candidates in the Western Australia's tight employment market.

The image of Fortescue Metals Group executive director Andrew Forrest waving an Australian flag from the front of an iron ore train to mark his company's entry into the export market in May appeared to capture the spirit of the state's mining boom.

Curtin University of Technology came forward as one of the best employer brands in this year's WA Business News Branding Survey, featuring along the large corporate firms and perennial performers Wesfarmers, BankWest, Woodside and RAC.

Western Australia still lacks a unique and cohesive branding strategy, according to some of the state's top advertising agencies.

The Perth Convention Bureau has engaged advertising agency Marketforce to develop a business events brand for Western Australia to promote better the state as an international meetings, incentive and convention destination.

The Western Australian business success story that everyone has been talking about in the past twelve months, Fortescue Metals Group, has topped the emerging brands list.

Microbrewers Gage Roads Brewing and Little Creatures have featured in the top five emerging brands in the WA Business News branding survey every year for the past four years.

Two advertising campaigns launched at the same time by the same agency have made iiNet and Murdoch University the most improved brands in this years' WA Business News branding survey.

Having formerly been named among the most recognised and best corporate brands in Western Australia in WA Business News' previous branding surveys, the more recent fortunes of Alinta have taken a protracted and well-documented fall.

Bankwest has again topped the waning brands list in a survey of WA's leading marketing, advertising and PR executives.

Local agencies are starting to tap into the rapid global expansion of online and digital marketing.