The Most Valuable Global Brands: Google Tops Again

[engine]

For the third year in a row, the search giant whose very name has been transformed into a verb, grabbed the top spot in a list of the top 100 most powerful global brands (PDF). Its brand value grew 30 percent since last year's report to surpass $86 billion.

Market research firm Millward Brown Optimor produced the rankings based on interviews with more than a million consumers worldwide, as well as on financial data. The results show that "strong brands continue to outperform weak ones in terms of market share and share price during recessions," Millward Brown Optimor CEO Joanna Seddon said in a statement.

Microsoft, for the record, once again came in third, with a $70.9 billion brand value. (General Electric once again took second place, at $71.4 billion.)

The Most Valuable Global Brands: Google Tops Again [news.com]

The top ten are:
1. Google
2. GE
3. Microsoft
4. Coca-Cola
5. China Mobile
6. IBM
7. Apple
8. McDonalds
9. Nokia
10. Marlboro

[Syzygy]

Hmm, what happened to all those giants of yore "whose very name has been transformed into a verb"? ;-)

[Tourz]

Brand schmand... Let's talk about fertilizer:

Potash stocks nourished by $400/tonne price hike [canadianpress.google.com] --representing a 230 per cent increase over the price in 2007... The jump in the share price valued the company at $62.7 billion, way ahead of Royal Bank of Canada as the country's second most valuable company.

Potash the new crude [canada.com] -- Chinese agency agrees to hike price by $400 US a tonne... farmers working to meet world food and fuel demand... global tastes are turning to protein-rich diets...

and global inflation...

edit: clarified 230% price increase of potash, not stock

[edited by: Tourz at 9:07 pm (utc) on April 21, 2008]

[dakuma]

Only surprise here is, excuse me, Marlboro?

[tealove]

General Electric and China Mobile

[rrussell]

no auto makers? GM? Hmm

[Syzygy]

I'm sorry - I've just been reading the actual press release and there's no mention of the survey sample base either numerically or geographically. Even the complete report is vague at best.

What is obvious is that the company, who "...help clients identify and realize the business opportunities that valuable brands offer", have services to push in China and Asia as a whole, hence the "surprising" inclusions of a telecomms co surely unknown to most of the west, and a cigarette brand whose idolic status in this half of the east/west axis died out with the last Marlboro man [en.wikipedia.org]!

Of course, the point of any press release or survey is to "make the news" and attract attention, and that they've certainly achieved. Vague explanations of survey metrics doesn't do them any favours though...

Cynical Syzygy ;-)

[edited by: Syzygy at 7:13 pm (utc) on April 23, 2008]