The AXA brand is worth €5.01 billion, says Interbrand

The firm Interbrand, a subsidiary of Omnicom, has just compiled a ranking for the French business magazine L'Expansion of the most valuable French brands operating internationally. The AXA brand (€5.01 billion) has cracked the list for the first time, moving directly to 4th place.

Interviewed by L'Expansion, Claire Dorland-Clauzel, senior executive vice president in charge of communications, brand and sustainable development for the AXA Group, declared: "Our name is the unifying cement of a group built up over the past twenty years though numerous acquisitions. This is the exact vision with which Claude Bébéar created AXA in 1985." About the brand, she added: "Its content must clearly express the company's strategy and positioning. It is a commitment made to the customer, a promise that needs to be upheld over the long term."

Brand Valuation is an approach pioneered by Interbrand which consists of calculating the financial worth of a brand, in four steps:

• Analyzing financial data to identify the value-added* generated by the brand
• Measuring the role of branding in each business segment
• Assessing brand strength
• Measuring the gap that exists between the brand being valued and a fictitious ideal brand with maximum scores for all criteria.

These successive steps make it possible to calculate the net earnings generated by the brand alone.

The ranking shows that 24 French brands operating internationally are worth over one billion euros. Topping the list are Louis Vuitton (€15.63 billion), L'Oréal (€5.33 billion), BNP Paribas (€5.1 billion) and AXA (€5.01 billion).

The AXA brand has therefore made a stunning entry into the list. The Group was honored for this feat with an award during a ceremony held the evening of May 30^th, 2006, in Paris.

* Sum of all the income that can be credited to the brand, market by market, segment by segment.