The Enel brand is a winner

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A company’s brand defines its identity – it’s a key element in making it more recognisable and thereby creating financial value.

Nowadays it is essential to build the brand on the basis of a shared vision that reflects corporate awareness. Recognising this, Enel has implemented an in-depth renewal initiative that has gained international recognition – the UK’s Brand Finance company, leader in brand and corporate strategies assessment, has named our company the world’s strongest brand in its sector.

The award, which was accepted in London on behalf of the Group by João Duarte, Head of brand strategy and activation, comes exactly two years after the launch of our rebranding in 2016. This was carried out in line with the transformations taking place across the Group.

This strategy is driven by the concept of Open Power, an expression of various forms of opening – opening access to energy to more people, opening the energy world to new technologies, opening energy to new uses and opening ourselves up to new partnerships.

The way we have developed our brand means that our stakeholders see us as a group that is in perfect harmony with the energy world – increasingly innovative, sustainable and participatory. In this context we have placed great emphasis on digitalisation, because today digital communication is the most important, constantly expanding platform for consolidating corporate brands.

In parallel with this initiative we decided to renew the basic elements of our image. We began with the logo and websites, which were restructured with particular attention to the use of mobile devices. The basic idea behind all this is the central role played by the customer, which means we do not seek to communicate old-style information but tell stories and describe people, giving examples rather than teaching.

It is the opinion of Brand Finance that this process of innovation means that our company is now seen as being environmentally aware and customer-focused. When giving the reasons for their evaluation, Brand Finance also mentioned some of our innovation and sustainability initiatives, including the opening of Enel Innovation Hubs in San Francisco, Tel Aviv, Moscow and Madrid, electric mobility projects in Italy, the cutting edge nanotechnology-based waste water treatment plant in Latin America and the acquisition of EnerNOC and Demand Energy, two U.S.-based companies specialising in smart energy solutions.

The rating awarded by Brand Finance was obtained by combining three indexes – investments in the brand, how the brand is perceived by various stakeholder groups (with special emphasis on our customers’ point of view) and the brand’s business performance. With an overall points score of 82.8, we were rated first, above the Saudi Electricity Company, South Korea’s Kepco and the French company EDF.

As for the brand's financial value, the UK-based agency developed a separate ratings platform where Enel gained third place behind China’s State grid and EDF, retaining its coveted AAA- status and showing an increase of 8% over last year’s performance. All this confirms that our brand’s strength is not an end in itself, but is also a highly efficient method of achieving its main objective, namely creating economic value.