Press Releases

FORTUNE Magazine Publishes Landor Associates' Second Breakaway Brands Study

Three Key Trends Identified as Driving Brand Health Over a Three-Year Period: Trust, Community, and Knowledge

New York - September 12, 2006 - For the second consecutive year, Landor Associates is proud to announce the exclusive publication of its Breakaway Brands Study in FORTUNE magazine's September 18th issue, now available on newsstands.

The 2006 study identifies the ten brands with the greatest percentage gains in brand health and business value as a result of superb brand strategy and execution over a three-year period, 2002-2005.

The ten brands are:

• iPod - consumer electronics
• Viking - major appliances
• Converse - athletic shoes
• Robitussin - cough & cold
• Best Buy - electronics retailer
• Kohl's - department stores
• French's - condiments
• Geico - insurance
• Dove - personal care
• eBay - online auction

Landor's commitment to helping clients manage brand-led business transformation drove the development of the Breakaway Brands Study in 2005; the only one of its kind, this study analyzes brands according to changes in business value due to measurable improvements in brand performance. The study's findings are integrated, being equally grounded in consumer perception and financial data, and instructive, highlighting the link between changes in brand strategy and the value of the company.

Because the Landor Breakaway Brands Study is founded upon the world's most respected and comprehensive database of brands, we have great confidence in the rigor of our approach, explained Hayes Roth, Chief Marketing Officer of Landor Associates. More importantly, however, this study measures the tangible impact successful branding can have on brands large and small and that's learning from which every organization can benefit.

Landor's strategic experts conducted additional analysis of the ten brands and found that each enhanced their dialogue with customers by embracing one or more of the following trends:

Building on a foundation of trust

This year's brands earned their customers' confidence by living up to their promises; in turn, their customers trusted and followed the brands as they diversified and moved into new spaces.

Cultivating brand communities

Leadership brands capitalize on the basic need for human connection by allowing enthusiastic customers to borrow the brand image to express a collective voice: the voice of a brand community.

Empowering customers with knowledge

The ten brands in this year's list are arming their customers with information; by proactively educating customers, a brand can better manage its image and get valuable feedback in return.

Siobhan Perdue, Vice President, BrandEconomics said, Thanks to new technologies and innovative thinking, brands are moving across spaces and categories very quickly, making it more challenging than ever before to track their financial performance. We believe this study to be the best at measuring the value created by successful brand investment, thus reflecting the power of effectively leveraging brand management at every level.

Five brands to watch are also featured in the study. Curves (health clubs), Tampico (fruit drinks), Blue from American Express (credit cards), Cole Haan (shoes) and Hennessey (spirits) showed the greatest gains in brand strength in the last year.

Note: A summary presentation of the study is available to members of the media upon request. Please see the FORTUNE Web site (www.fortune.com) for additional information.

About the Breakaway Brands Study

The results of Landor's Breakaway Brands Study were achieved through the integration of Young & Rubicam Brands' BrandAsset® Valuator, the world's longest-running and most comprehensive survey of consumer brand perceptions, with Stern Stewart's Economic Value Added (EVA), an internationally recognized and respected metric of financial performance that measures the profit of an enterprise. Combined, the two models provide the only objective measure of brand value by combining BrandAsset Valuator's quantitative assessment of brand health and EVA metrics on financial performance, providing a brand valuation approach grounded equally in both the consumer and economic perspectives on brands.

Landor and BrandEconomics studied more than 2,500 brands in the BrandAsset Valuator's U.S. database from 2002-2005 to identify those brands that exhibited the greatest increases in Brand Strength, a combination of Differentiation and Relevance categories. These brands command greater premiums and have broader sales footprints as a result of their brand improvements. This directly affects current operations values, allowing companies to expand across categories and geographies and enabling significant future growth value. For each of these brands, Landor and FORTUNE evaluated key actions the brand owners took to improve the brand's performance, while BrandEconomics calculated the financial impact these efforts had on the company's value.

For More Information:

Mindy Romero
Manager, Public Relations
Landor Associates
212.614.5261
mindy_romero@landor.com

Liz Biebl
Account Executive
Cohn & Wolfe
415-365-8544
liz_biebl@sfo.cohnwolfe.com

Siobhan Perdue
Vice President
BrandEconomics
212.261.0614
sperdue@brandecon.com

Susan Brown Williams
Director, Communications
FORTUNE
212.522.0133
susan_williams@timeinc.com

About BrandEconomics

BrandEconomics combines the rigor of a management consultancy with the insight of a marketing services agency. We provide fact-based branding advice backed by our unique understanding of the relationship of brand health to value creation.

BrandEconomics is a Stern Stewart company, formed through a joint initiative with Young & Rubicam Brands. The company, founded in 2001, is headquartered in New York.

BrandEconomics also enjoys close collaboration with the worldwide offices of Y&R and Landor Associates. BrandEconomics provides value-based brand consulting support to their client relationships.

About Landor Associates