The Top 100 Brands
August 4, 2005 – 11:10 pmBusiness Week and Interbrand Corp. joined forces to produce a list of the top 100 global brands. The article describing the results was published in Business Week. In order to be considered, a brand must
- must be worth more than $1 billion,
- generate at least one third of its earnings outside of its country of origin,
- and have publicly available financial and marketing data.
It turns out, not surprisingly, that Coca-Cola is the most valuable brand in the world. Number two? Microsoft. You will probably recognize at least 90 of the 100 brands if you choose to take a look at the list.
There were a few surprises, though. Samsung (at number 20) outranked Sony (at number 28). The top automobile brand in the world? Toyota. The most valuable name in the media sector? Reuters.
The article in Business Week accompanying the final rankings had an interesting take on how companies are trying to reach exceedingly difficult to reach customers. Between TiVo filtering television ads, commercial-free satellite radio filtering radio ads, and pop-up and ad blockers filtering Internet ads, today’s consumer is more successfully shielded from unwanted advertising than ever before. As a result, companies are trying to blend advertising and entertainment in ways that are not so easily filtered. From television and film spots to short Internet movies and sponsored concerts, the big brands are trying to get their message out in ways that were either unheard of or unheralded even ten to fifteen years ago.
Oh, and if anyone’s interested, Pepsi is number 23.
3 Responses to “The Top 100 Brands”
Out of curiosity, which brands did you not recognize? I feel somewhat ashamed that I had heard of and could give you a general idea of what all but three were. (Bulgari, Hermes and Zara, for the record).
On another note, it seems ridiculous to me to think that the “brand” is actually worth as much as they assign to it. It makes some sense when you are talking about Gucci or Coke, but does anyone honestly think that 22% of Microsoft’s market cap is because of their brand? I would argue that they make money in spite of their reputation.
By Bobby on Aug 5, 2005 at 9:30 am
Okay, this might be embarasssing to admit, but I did not know those three you listed (Bulgari, Hermes, and Zara), and there were a few others: Nescafe (I could have taken a guess, but I hadn’t heard of them before), Novartis, and Moet & Chandon.
I had heard of the rest, but I would have been hard pressed to give an accurate one or two line description of a couple of them.
By jjk on Aug 5, 2005 at 9:35 am
Bobby, you’re thinking as an educated person. I’d say that your average person’s knowledge of the inner working of computers is limited to two names: Intel and Microsoft. They might know that computers use “Intel processors” and that they run “Microsoft Windows”. And for them, that’s all they need. When offered the chance to put Microsoft Office on their computer or (insert other office package here), they say “Oh, Microsoft definitely. They know what they’re doing.” My own dad, a rather knowledgeable person, recently asked me why none of the computers he was looking to purchase for my aunt had Microsoft Word and Excel on them, because “Isn’t it part of the operating system?”
Hmm, this is a rather disjointed argument, but the point is, I think you underestimate the value that your average joe puts on the Microsoft name. To most people it is synonymous with “sofware” or even “quality software”.
By Adam on Aug 6, 2005 at 12:43 am