The value of brand endorsement

In the wake of the RIBA's elevation to 114th top UK brand in the latest Business Superbrands league table we ask whether the association of a product or service with the RIBA name actually translates to the bottom line.

The 2010 Top 500 Business Superbrands poll, published annually by The Centre for Brand Analysis, ranked the RIBA as the UK's 114th leading brand, ahead of such global heavyweights as CNN and Deutsche Bank. Judging took into account the views of an independent panel of experts and over 1,500 business professionals, all of whom were quizzed on their attitudes towards thousands of brand names.

It is the third year running in which the RIBA made it into the final 500, and marked an improvement on their 2009 performance of over 75 places.

Clients of RIBA Enterprises – Advertising and Marketing Solutions, have long been able to use RIBA-branded product logos on literature, stationery and exhibition stands – subject to procedural guidelines. Alison Hopkinson of Bona, the flooring product specialists, claims that taking advantage of the brand name association is a "complete no-brainer".

"The RIBA-branded product logos are such familiar symbols to architects that it's silly not to use them," she says. "We use them on all our marketing collateral – brochures, websites, exhibition stands etc."

RIBA product logos were on prominent display on Bona's stand at Ecobuild.
 

"Our key target audience at Ecobuild show was architects. So we needed to have our RIBA CPD Providers Network logo for people who were looking for CPD. Specifiers that use NBS Plus needed to see that logo there, to show them that there was a direct route to specifying Bona products. And of course the RIBA Product Selector name is infinitely recognisable to architects, so again it was just another shorthand way of reminding them where they could find more information about us."

Yes, but were there any measurable benefits?

"Apart from raising our profile among architects we wanted to widen the net by introducing Bona to more specifiers. We launched two new products: Bona Mega Extra Matt and a new range of softer, more natural, stains called Bona Create. In total we took just under 200 leads from architects and project managers, and we booked ten CPD seminars – far more than I expected. CPD is such a great way of building a relationship with specifiers. It was a real result."

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