Maybank

Maybank has been presented the “Brand of the Year” award for the third consecutive year at the World Branding Awards held in London - the only brand accorded this recognition under the Banking category for Malaysia.

The World Branding Awards is organised by the World Branding Forum (WBF), a global non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing branding standards for the good of the branding community as well as consumers. It organises and sponsors a range of educational programmes, including collaborations with leading universities and museums.

The Awards recognises and celebrates some of the best global and national brands for their work and achievements. Uniquely, winners are judged through three streams: brand valuation, consumer market research, and public online voting. The Maybank Brand has been valued at USD2.05 billion by Brand Finance Global 500 League Table Report 2016.

Maybank Group Chief Strategy Officer Michael Foong said that the award was indeed a global recognition of the strong brand equity Maybank enjoyed amongst its stakeholders.

“This win for the third consecutive year reaffirms the consistency of brand experience that we endeavour to provide across our entire network, guided by our unique mission of humanising financial services,” he said. “Operating in a digital age now gives us even greater opportunities to ensure our brand reaches customers across the globe in a more effective manner and we will make every effort to strengthen this brand experience continuously.”

Meanwhile, Richard Rowles, Chairman of the World Branding Forum said that the Awards are a celebration of the hard work that goes into building great brands. As over 70% of the voting is by consumers, winners of the Awards clearly demonstrate that they have built strong brand loyalty among their customers and fans.

“The Awards are testament to the people who work behind the scenes in building and maintaining brands. These are brands that have a strong relationship with consumers,” added Rowles.

Peter Pek, Chief Executive, World Branding Forum also commented, “As part of the judging process, a brand valuation is conducted, and takes into account financial performance, advertising, public relations, marketing, and social media engagement activities. It takes years to build a strong brand and the Awards showcase some of the very best in the world of branding.”

“Today, consumers are more discerning than ever. Having a good product or service alone is insufficient. Brands need to provide memorable brand experience to its customers. The quality of brands competing for the awards is very high. Winners set the standards of what brands need to be in order to win,” he added.

There are three tiers of awards. The Global Award is presented to truly international brands that have a presence in ten or more countries, on three or more continents. Winners of the Global Award are not eligible for the National Award. The National Award is presented to the very top brands in each participating country at the awards. These are brands that are household names in their home country that have been judged to be truly exceptional. The Regional Award is presented to winners who win in multiple countries in a particular geographic region.