KUALA LUMPUR: Malayan Banking Bhd recently clinched the Brand of the Year 2015 award – the second consecutive year of recognition -- at the World Branding Forum (WBF) held in London. 

“Maybank was again the only brand accorded this recognition under the Banking category for Malaysia,” it said on Monday. 

Maybank group president & CEO, Datuk Abdul Farid Alias said this award was a testament to the continuous efforts put in to enhance its brand equity among customers. 

“We have been working hard over the years to improve our brand experience through our engagement with customers across all channels, and we would like to thank them for this honour as well as for their trust and support over the years.” 

“We believe this award also reinforces our success in building a unique experience centred on our mission to humanise financial services,” he said. “We intend to pursue these efforts so that we continue to create a consistent customer experience across our global network.” 

WBF, which organises the prestigious World Branding Awards, is a global non-profit organisation based in London and dedicated to advancing branding standards for the good of the branding community as well as consumers. 

It recognises and celebrates some of the best global and national brands for their work and achievements, judged through three streams: brand valuation, consumer market research, and public online voting. 

There are three tiers of awards namely the Global Award, National Award and Regional Award, which are presented to truly international brands that have a presence in ten or more countries, on three or more continents, and limited to the top 100 global brands in any particular year. 

The National Award is presented to the very top brands in each participating country at the awards. These are brands that are household names in their home country that have been judged to be truly exceptional. 

WBF chairman Richard Rowles said during the award ceremony, “This is a celebration of the hard work that goes into building great brands. As half of the voting is by consumers, winners of the Awards clearly demonstrate that they have built strong brand loyalty among their customers and fans. 

“The Awards is a testament to the people who work behind the scenes in building and maintaining brands. These are brands that have a strong relationship with consumers.” 

WBF chief executive Peter Pek explained that as part of the judging process, a brand valuation is conducted, and takes into account financial performance, advertising, public relations, marketing, and social media engagement activities. 

“It takes years to build a strong brand. The Awards showcases some of the very best in the world of branding. Today, consumers are more discerning than ever. Having a good product or service alone is insufficient. Brands need to provide memorable brand experience to its customers.

“The quality of brands competing for the awards is very high. Winning brands set the standards of what brands need to be in order to win.”