Qatar Airways, one of the world’s fastest growing and most highly decorated Airlines, has this year been inaugurated into the top 500 brand ranking by renowned brand consultancy Brand Finance.
Since 2013 ITMS Marketing has represented the brand in Germany and Austria, helping the airline to become the fourth most valuable ranked brand from the Middle East, and the ninth out of all airlines listed.
Since its relaunch in 1997 Qatar Airways has been committed to building its global brand identity. In addition to superb service, a distinctive travel experience for its passengers and innovative entertainment systems, it is mainly the proactive staging of its global communications that has quickly led the brand to such value.
A brand is always one of a company’s key assets. A well-conceived brand strengthens the relationship with target groups and promotes the achievement of sales targets. Qatar Airways employs branding with strategic foresight. The brand is mainly driven by a holistic public relations approach and a varied sponsorship mix. The most famous example is the partnership with the world’s top football club FC Barcelona, with which the airline has been cooperating as a main sponsor for years. In addition, Qatar Airways is a supporting partner to a variety of sports tournaments such as the 2015 Qatar Handball World Cup and the Football World Cup 2022. Horse riding, tennis, athletics and cycling are also part of the wide-ranging sponsorship portfolio.
Besides its success in choice of strategic partnerships, Qatar Airways is supported by its agency partners, which proactively enable cooperation within selected target groups. Here ITMS draws on a broad mix of public relations tools in German-speaking countries. Besides high-class press events, regional promotions and the integration of social media activities, the agency employs creative storytelling to selected agents. This unified approach reinforces the global brand message, responding and interacting with customers around the world.
Brand Finance’s well established ranking determines brand value based on the question of royalties a company would have pay to acquire that brand (the so called royalty method). Within the Global 500 list each brand is also assigned a rating. Similar to credit ratings, the value represents an orientation with respect to the strengths, risks and potential of a brand compared to its competitors. Apple is by far most valuable brand in the world, according to the list, followed by Google and Samsung. Successful German brand BMW cuts in at 16th place in the global evaluation, ranking above Coca-Cola and Facebook.
