Qantas crowned Australia’s strongest brand (and another airline makes the top 10)

Qantas crowned Australia’s strongest brand (and another airline makes the top 10)
By Alexandra Coulton


New research has found that Qantas has taken the title of Australia’s strongest brand off the Commonwealth Bank for 2019.

Independent brand valuation and strategy consultancy Brand Finance has once again evaluated the relative strength of local brands based on factors such as marketing investment, familiarity, loyalty, staff satisfaction, and corporate reputation.

According to these criteria, Qantas (brand value up 45 per cent to $3.8 billion) improved its brand strength to 86.6 out of 100, achieving a brand rating upgrade from AAA- to AAA to become Australia’s strongest brand.

Mark Crowe, managing director of Brand Finance Australia, said Qantas’ brand performance is quite exceptional given that its enterprise value has decreased by eight per cent.

“This result highlights the importance of the iconic brand to the company as it deals with increasing competition on its domestic and international routes,” he said.

“Brands in the airline sector have been to the fore in Australian aviation, with both Jetstar (28 per cent) and Virgin Australia (16 per cent) also recording strong increases in value.”

Virgin was the only other airline to make Brand Finance’s top 10 list, moving up from 13th spot last year to 3rd in 2019.

Australia's strongest brands 2019 (Brand Finance)

Brand Finance’s 2019 report found that the airline sector accounted for 3.2 per cent of total brand value in Australia with $5.4 billion, and had the highest reputation of all sectors with a 6.9 rating out of 10.

As for the most valuable brands, Qantas was the highest-ranked from the tourism sector (12th, up from 13th), followed by Crown (24th, up from 27th), Flight Centre (32nd, down from 31st), The Star (33rd, down from 29th), Jetstar (43rd, up from 48th), Virgin (49th, up from 51st) and Sydney Airport (77th, up from 80th).

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