Millward Brown published their “BrandZ – Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands” ranking 2015 today. The ranking celebrates its 10th anniversary as it has been published since 2006. According to the authors, it is the only brand valuation methodology that combines customer viewpoints and financial valuation. As the methodology remains unchanged there will not be a detailed assessment of the 2015 edition. For our full Rated Ranking please click here.
When it comes to the results, the “usual suspects”, the tech giants, dominate the top positions: Apple on #1, Google on #2 and Microsoft on #3. The brand value of Apple increased by 67% compared to 2014. That is why they were able to bump Google from the pole position. The authors justify this steep increase by the success of the iPhone 6. Highest riser in this year’s ranking is Facebook whose brand value increased by 99%! For all brands in the Top 100 list Millward Brown indicates an increase in overall brand value of 14% compared to last year’s issue. The cumulated brand value of the whole list has risen by 126% in comparison to the first ranking published in 2006.
In general, the brand values are very high when compared to the two other “Big Players”, Interbrand and Brand Finance. For instance, the Apple brand is valuated with $246,999 million by Millward Brown. In the Brand Finance Global 500 ranking the brand is worth $128,303 million and the Interbrand Best Global Brands ranking (2014) indicates a value of $118,863 million. The Swiss trademark valuation company Markables recently published a white paper on the accuracy of brand valuation rankings. In their paper they determine several “discrepancies” between the three major rankings. Among others, they come to the conclusion that the rankings “exhibit an average over-evaluation of brand by a factor of 2.5x” and that “whatever the reasons for the widely differing results of brand valuations in each particular case might be – there is urgent need for improvement (to harmonize their results)”. In their analysis they also claim quite provocatively that “the basic reason to compile these brand rankings is public relations and press coverage.” Click here to access the white paper.
When looking at the origin of the brands in the Top 100 list, half of them come from North America. The Top 10 exclusively consists of US-based brands. Nevertheless, Asian brands are gaining ground. The Chinese internet company Tencent is on rank 11 and retailer Alibaba makes a standing jump to #13. The highest-ranking European brands are the German brands SAP on #24 and Deutsche Telekom on #27.
More information on the ranking as well as a 100 pages report can be accessed here.
