BrandAsset® Valuator

Young & Rubicam's proprietary BrandAsset ® Valuator (BAV) is used as a resource for building and managing brands. It is used to measure current brand performance and to evaluate brand potential. Hong Kong is included as a brand in this global database.

In order to diagnose a brand's health, four primary dimensions are considered: its Differentiation, its Relevance, its Esteem and its Knowledge. The relationship among these "pillars" reveals the brand's capacity to carry a premium price and its ability to fend off competitors.

Hong Kong as a Brand

With international business audiences, Hong Kong is seen as having a very strong brand with the potential to become a "power" brand. While Hong Kong is viewed as having high differentiation, it suffers from the problem nearly all locations have and that is low relevance. It also joins other location brands in having limited esteem. Internationally, there is moderate knowledge of the Hong Kong brand. While Hong Kong is seen internationally as innovative, up-to-date, dynamic, intelligent, glamorous, progressive, energetic, trendy, prestigious, high performance, unique, distinctive, it is not seen as a "friendly" brand, an area where locations like New Zealand and Canada can claim strength.

As with all location brands, proximity promotes brand strength. Those audiences who are closer to the location, who understand the brand attributes best, are those who consider the brand to be stronger than audiences who are not as familiar with those attributes. Hong Kong as a "brand" scores highest with other locations in the Asia-Pacific region.

In the case of Hong Kong, audiences throughout the Asia-Pacific region consider the Hong Kong brand to be quite strong. Audiences in regions such as Eastern Europe and Latin America, where familiarity with Hong Kong is not great, place Hong Kong in a growing niche brand category. When Hong Kong is measured against the average of other location brands in terms of the BAV attributes, it is seen as far more innovative, up-to-date, dynamic, intelligent, glamorous, progressive, intelligent, energetic, trendy, prestigious, unique, high performance and distinctive than most other locations. However, there are also areas where Hong Kong is seen as less than the location average. These areas include such things as simple, rugged and obliging.