The global top 100 brands reported by Millward Brown Optimor, including data from Bloomberg, BrandZ and Datamonitor, reveals standings, but what do they say about the brand?
I included two brands out of the fold, Starbucks and KFC. Starbucks is in danger of not being on the list next year, while this is the first time for KFC making the list. So expensive coffee is out and fried chicken is in. McDonalds gained 34% in their brand over last year and I attribute this to unmatched WiFi access and better/cheaper coffee than Starbucks.
Google, Microsoft, IBM, Apple and Amazon have sizeable interests in cloud computing. Then as Dell drops slightly in branding value, Apple gains over them and HP, and is it because there are more consumers buying MACs than PCs or iPhones than Nokias? What I didn't show was Bank of America that suffered -53% change in brand value change, contrasting that with the newly listed China Merchants Bank with a ranking of 80 and 168% increase in brand value. Read the article here.
Cisco's brand value dropped 25 percent over last year. Interesting enough--Bank of America's CEO gets the boot for the Merrill deal and they are one of Cisco's "big" accounts. Cisco leads in new telephony deployments yet their brand value sags. What does this mean?
To be fair, the brand value calculations are projections, calculations and analyses that are best-guess scenarios that look at financial earnings and economic forecasts. I think it's more important to understand what the figures don't say. How is your brand faring in good and bad economic times and against competitors and the changing market?
Joanna Seddon, the FT author of the article states, "The key to success resides in the minds of its customers, but a brand is valuable only if it can translate customer sentiment into financial returns."
When solutions are deployed they fall under a brand. Unlike big shots that think they rule the world or dominate a market, there are scores of SMBs like me that are brands because our customers don't see "the branding" in their rolodexes or speed dials as I've mentioned before. Branding is important but it isn't inclusive or exclusive to the product or solution. My theory is that folks are either extending themselves on faith of a brand or they are extending themselves to their customers in knowledge, insight, experience and anything else that makes up a workable solution. There's a difference.
