FOREWORD
Sri Lanka’s brand landscape
The annual guide
BY Ruchi Gunewardene
Brand Finance Lanka’s brand league tables have been published by LMD in the Brands Annual for 16 consecutive years. Our objective has been and still is to provide readers with a definitive annual guide to the brand landscape of the country.
Presenting a fact based and comprehensive analysis of leading brands and their performance across many sectors requires considerable data gathering. To do so, we obtain data from numerous sources such as our Bloomberg terminal to access the financials of listed companies in Sri Lanka, review annual reports of companies and analyse their performance, and conduct independent market research to understand consumer equity and net promoter scores amongst a sample of 1,700 respondents.
On publication of our most valuable brands league table every year, we provide a comprehensive analysis to companies that want to understand the basis of the valuation through a Brand Value Report (BVR). This report is being used by several corporates as an annual brand health check.
Many senior management teams and boards of directors have understood the importance of linking their marketing investments to business outcomes through value creation. This has led to undertaking bespoke brand valuation studies for both listed and unlisted brands.
By bringing financial metrics to boardroom discussions, the marketing function is gaining more acceptance around the table. Boards are also beginning to hold the heads of marketing accountable for their budgets as they continue to escalate beyond most operational costs. With astronomical budgets, computing a marketing ROI is vital – and Brand Finance has the tools to measure and monitor this.
This year, based on the interest in our brand league tables and a willingness among many clients to engage in discussions, we initiated a process whereby brands were invited to share additional information to enhance the accuracy of the data we use in our valuation.
We’ve received a positive response to this and expect to continue this form of engagement in the future. And we look forward to your continued involvement in the years ahead.
