10 Brands Losing the Most Value

10. Dell
> Pct. brand value decline: 9%
> Brand value: $7.6 billion (49th)
> Parent company: Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL)
> 1-yr. change in revenue: -2.36%
> Industry: Technology

Dell’s brand has consistently lost value over the past four years as the company has moved away from PC sales towards IT services, a strategy Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) also has attempted with limited success. For 2012, Interbrand values Dell’s brand at $7.6 billion, the lowest it has been in the past 11 years. Although it remains one of the world’s largest PC makers, this year’s second-quarter PC shipments declined by 11.5% from a year before. The company also has struggled to create a viable smartphone, and it stopped selling the devices in the United States in March. Despite recent problems, Dell’s last annual report indicated that in fiscal 2012 “enterprise solutions and services business, a bellwether for execution of [the company’s] strategy, grew 6% to $18.6 billion, and was nearly 30% of revenue and almost half of gross margin dollars.”

9. Thomson Reuters
> Pct. brand value decline: 11%
> Brand value: $8.4 billion (44th)
> Parent company: Thomson Reuters Corp. (NYSE: TRI)
> 1-yr. change in revenue: 1.5%
> Industry: Business services

While Thomson Reuters used to be the dominant player in the financial terminal market, competitor Bloomberg has gained market share in recent years and has become the terminal to have on Wall St. Burton-Taylor International Consulting managing partner Douglas Taylor told Canadian Business in February that Bloomberg’s market share has finally caught up with Thomson Reuter’s, with each holding about a third. “It’s perceived as the Mercedes product,” Taylor said of the Bloomberg terminal. “If you have a Bloomberg, you have the ultimate terminal.” The struggle to fend off challenges from Bloomberg and others led the Thomson family, the company’s controlling shareholders, to remove Tom Glocer as CEO in December. But despite the company allowing the competition to gain on it, Interbrand notes that Thomson Reuters continues to lead its respective market in other key areas, such as legal research databases for law firms and the Checkpoint database for tax and accounting professionals.

Also Read: American Companies with the Most Cash

8. Honda
> Pct. brand value decline: 11% (tied for 9th)
> Brand value: $17.3 billion (21st)
> Parent company: Honda Motor Company Ltd. (NYSE: HMC)
> 1-yr. change in revenue: 4.6%
> Industry: Automotive

The brand valuation of the worldwide automotive industry has begun to recover after a major dip during the recession, rising from a total of about $128 billion in 2010 to over $160 billion in 2012. The value of all of the top car brands measured by Interbrand increased since the 2011 report, except for Honda and Kia. Honda’s brand value in 2012 of $17.3 billion — which is $13 billion less than its Japanese rival Toyota Motor Corp.’s (NYSE: TM) brand — is the lowest since 2006. Some events that have impacted the company were beyond its control, including the Japanese earthquake, which affected its manufacturing, and floods in Thailand that hurt some of its suppliers. The carmaker, though, is responsible to some of the damage to its brand. Honda has issued multiple major recalls in recent years, including one for more than 570,000 Honda-branded vehicles earlier this week.

7. MTV
> Pct. brand value decline: 12%
> Brand value: $5.6 billion (67th)
> Parent company: Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAB)
> 1-yr. change in revenue: 9.7%
> Industry: Media

Does the M really belong in MTV anymore? Interbrand notes that MTV continues to steer further away from its musical roots and continues to experiment into low-cost content, leading to an “identity crisis.” The agency added, “MTV would do well to push the boundaries and recapture some of its lost edge — the very thing that made it a household name more than 30 years ago.” Even some of its staple programming is hitting turbulence. Jersey Shore, which became the most popular show in the history of MTV, started declining in the ratings in the beginning in 2011. The show will now come to an end following Season 6, which will premiere Oct. 4. Meanwhile, the ratings for the MTV Movie Awards in June were down 29% from a year ago.

6. Citi
> Pct. brand value decline: 12% (tied for 7th)
> Brand value: $7.6 billion (50th)
> Parent company: Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C)
> 1-yr. change in revenue: -5.2%
> Industry: Financial services

After five years of consecutive decline, Citi’s brand value in 2012 is less than one-third of its all-time high of $23.4 billion. By comparison, the brand value of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) , another money center bank, has risen in two of the past three years. During the last several years, multiple lawsuits have been brought against Citi for its role in the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis. A $45 billion bailout from the U.S. Treasury in 2008 and a failed Federal Reserve “stress test” — a test that evaluates a bank’s ability to survive a stock or housing market crash — have also hurt the bank’s reputation. To help revitalize its brand, the bank secured an Olympic sponsorship and launched a major advertising campaign to highlight its major historical financial innovations. However, Interbrand’s Josh Feldmeth told 24/7 Wall St. he did not believe Citi had a marketing problem, but that “evaluating banks on fundamentals is very much in play” in Citi’s brand decline.