How Lego's bricks have built a stronger brand than Ferrari's cars

Lego has overtaken Ferrari to become the world’s most powerful brand, according to a new study, while Apple retained its title as the most valuable marquee.

The Danish toy company topped Brand Finance’s “strength” list, which measures a brand’s ability to impact a company’s performance by looking at marketing investment and the goodwill the brand has built up with customers and staff.

“Lego was the surprise riser, overtaking last year’s winner Ferrari as the strongest brand,” said Robert Haigh, branding expert at Brand Finance. “A lot of that has been down to the success of The Lego Movie but Lego’s underlying strength is that it appeals to both sexes, and all ages. Kids have an affection for playing with it and parents see it with a sense of nostalgia.”

Ferrari’s decline has been hastened by its lack of success on the track as well as the company becoming more mainstream.

“Ferrari’s been slipping since the end of the [Michael] Schumacher era but it’s really fallen as the F1 team has done badly this year,” said Mr Haigh. “They’ve also ended their cap on the amount of cars they produce so people don’t see it as being so exclusive anymore.”

Meanwhile, the success of the iPhone 6 and hype over the soon-to-be-released iWatch led Apple to retain its title as the world’s most valuable brand.

Brand Finance estimated that the California tech company’s name is now worth $128.3bn (£83.bn), putting it well ahead of runner-up Samsung at $81.7bn and third-placed Google at $76.7bn.

Monetary values are put on brands using a formula that accounts for factors including a company’s financial performance, investment in its brand and royalties from licensing it.

The top 10 of the world’s leading 500 brands was dominated by technology companies.

Vodafone emerged as the leading UK-based company. With a value of $27.3bn, Brand Finance handed the telecoms giant 22nd place, just edging out HSBC.

The third most valuable UK brand was telecoms group BT, which, at $16.2bn, was ranked 60th. It was followed by energy major BP at $14.7bn, placing it 69th worldwide, then Barclays at $14.2bn and 78th out of the top 500.

Compared with the previous year, the value of BT’s brand rose by 6pc, while BP’s jumped 16pc.

Mr Haigh attributed BP’s big increase to fading memories of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, while BT has been lifted by its move into broadcasting sporting events and ambitions for “quadplay” - offering broadband, landline, television and mobile phone packages.

Tesco was the biggest loser among UK brands this year, with its familiar red, white and blue logo losing more than 37pc of its value, falling to $11.1bn.

“What happened to Tesco is a clear indication of what the wrong business strategy will do to a brand,” said Mr Haigh. “The scandals that hit the company made it a magnet for bad news and achieved a critical mass so that everyone jumped on Tesco.”

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