Biggest Brands

Business Week has published the top 100 brands for this year. There are few big winners, big losers and the usual suspects. I am pretty much sure; it won’t be hard for anyone to guess the topmost brand. Yeah, it is ‘Coca-Cola’. In fact, there is no change from last year’s list till number 6.The top ten brands are as follows:-

Coca-Cola
Microsoft
IBM
GE
Intel
Nokia
Toyota
Disney
McDonald’s
Mercedes Benz

The methodology adopted by Business Week is based on the five year future earnings. So this takes into account the future strategies, innovation, leadership and not simply based on present position in the market.

One of the biggest winners for this year is ‘Google’, which had 46% jump in its brand value and is on 25th position. Good news for them just after a day of 90mn settlement of ‘Click Fraud’ class action lawsuit. In contrast to this, the biggest loser is GAP, having 22% erosion in its brand value.

‘Toyota’ climbed two places up and is mentioned to be fast catching with GM by Business Week. In the same segment, it is reversal of fortunes for ‘Ford’, which is estimated to lose 16% of its brand value. Not good news for the turnaround effort of William Clay Ford Jr, better known as Bill Ford. The analysts do not seem to have faith in his strategies.

‘Microsoft’, having a loss of 5% in its brand value is still comfortably placed, far ahead of its powerful competitors, Google and Apple.

The criteria for qualifying this list includes, each brand must derive about a third of its earnings outside its home country, be recognizable outside of its base of customers, and have publicly available marketing and financial data.

On the hindsight, do the top ten brands tell something about the kind of life, we are leading these days?