Thoughts on World’s Most Valuable Brands

Today I read a list of the world’s most valuable brand’s published by a consulting company called Brand Finance (I guess there really are consultants for just about everything). Basically its a ranking of the 500 largest companies in the world sorted by an estimation of their brand’s value. The core of their methodology uses a modified discounted cash flow technique to arrive at an estimated figure of royalty revenue generated by every brand. A little guesswork is definitely employed, but the logic seems reasonable enough given they’re trying to measure the somewhat unmeasurable.

Well, after perusing through the list here some of the thoughts I had:

• Apple overtakes Google for first time in 4 years. My last blog post talked about the fascinating rivalry that’s developed between these two companies. I’m certainly not surprised that Apple is more valuable than Google. In fact, I’m left questioning why Google was ever ahead of Apple to begin with? Its difficult to imagine how in terms of revenue, public awareness, customer loyalty or any other reasonable branding measure I can think of, Google would ever rank ahead of Apple.

• Google more valuable than McDonald’s or Coca-Cola? Not sure I buy this one. I very well could be the last person on earth who still believes in the power of old school brand’s, but I really can’t see how Google is more valuable than either McDonald’s or Coca-Cola... Do you think people in Zambia have ever heard of Google? Cause I’m pretty sure people living under rocks have heard of Coca-Cola.

• China Mobile more valuable than Verizon? No way. I’m pretty sure I would not be alone in calling shenanigans for this call. I understand that China have way more people than the western world, and I understand that everybody seems to assume they will all one day magically buy everything under the sun. But even when looking through rose colored glasses, I am pretty sure that Verizon is a more valuable brand than China Mobile.

• Blackberry is more valuable than Disney... Nonsense!

• Top 10 brand’s look just about right. With the exception of Google in the 2nd spot, and China Mobile in the 9th spot, I would say they otherwise have the top 10 list right about where I would expect them to be.