Australians hate American brands

AUSTRALIA'S TOP 100 BRANDS

The pervasive trend in Australia towards favouring homegrown brands also seeped into its Top 100 brands this year, as a slew of US brands including Avis, Amazon and Kraft slid down the ranks, while ANZ and Gloria Jeans climbed up.

There was little change in the top 10 brands, as Samsung and Apple sustained as the top two brands in the market (Samsung happens to be number one in 11 out of 14 markets in the survey).

Car rental company Avis (200) had a catastrophic fall of 126 places, more than double the next biggest casualty, Armani (137), which lost 51 places.

Avis slipped 27 places in the overall Top 1000 survey, from 149 to 176, and was dethroned from the top slot in the car rental category by Hertz this year.

Its loss has been Uber’s gain. The ride-sharing brand vaulted up 23 places to sit comfortably at 11 in Australia’s ranking, and also jumped from 83rd to fourth in the car rental category. While the brand has struggled to cut through in Southeast Asia, resulting in it selling its business in that market to Grab last year, in Australia its dominance remains unchallenged.

The majority of the major losses were targeted at global brands, save for Australian Football League (112) which lost 34 places, Swisse (122) which lost 22 places, and Dairy Farmers (77) which lost 16 places.

Kraft (109) suffered the third biggest loss in the market, down 47 places, while its subsidiary Heinz (26) also dropped by 10 places.

Retail giant Amazon (73) tumbled 42 places, which is noteworthy, given it only just launched its Prime subscription service in Australia in July last year.

The ecommerce company fell 11 places from 23 to 34 in the overall Top 1000 survey, as local competition gained ground. In Australia, eBay remains the dominant online retailer.

Levi’s (121), Toyota (113) and Palmolive (99), Nivea (124) and Mentos (128) were among other flops in Australia this year, losing 46, 42, 40 and 33 places, respectively.

Meanwhile Australian bank ANZ (62) enjoyed the biggest success, gaining 27 places.

Interestingly, Starbucks, which has been trying to claw back market share in Australia following its 2008 retreat, gained 10 places to 56.

The world’s largest coffee chain first opened branches in Australia in 2000, but in its first seven years it accumulated US$105 million in losses, forcing it to close nearly three-quarters of its stores in 2008. It has slowly been re-expanding since, and now has 39 stores across the country.

Controversially, it now sits directly above Aussie-originated coffee chain Gloria Jeans (57), but it gained nearly double (19) the amount of places.