For the serious brand practitioner, the summer lull is always a good time to look deeper into arcane issues such as the value of global brands. Millward Brown's challenger BRANDZ was out by April, but we all had to wait until late July for the incumbent, Interbrand's Best Global Brands (BGB). Now that we have them both and I'm back from my break, let's see how they face each other--literally. With all values in US$ billions, BGB's on the left and BRANDZ on the right half of the looong table below.
BGB Brand Value Value BRANDZ Brand
1 Coca-Cola 65.32 66.43 Google
2 Microsoft 58.7 61.88 GE
3 IBM 57.09 54.95 Microsoft
4 GE 51.56 44.13 Coca-Cola
5 Nokia 33.69 41.21 China Mobile
6 Toyota 32.07 39.17 Marlboro
7 Intel 30.95 36.88 Wal-Mart
8 McDonalds 29.39 33.71 Citi
9 Disney 29.21 33.57 IBM
10 Mercedes-Benz 23.56 33.43 Toyota
11 Citi 23.44 33.14 McDonald's
12 HP 22.19 31.67 Nokia
13 BMW 21.61 28.77 Bank of America
14 Marlboro 21.28 25.75 BMW
15 American Express 20.82 24.99 HP
16 Gillette 20.41 24.73 Apple
17 Louis Vuitton 20.32 24.58 UPS
18 Cisco 19.09 24.28 Wells Fargo
19 Honda 17.99 23.11 American Express
20 Google 17.83 22.69 Louis Vuitton
21 Samsung 16.85 22.57 Disney
22 Merrill Lynch 14.34 21.11 Vodafone
23 HSBC 13.56 19.45 NTT DoCoMo
24 Nescafe 12.95 18.81 Cisco
25 Sony 12.9 18.71 Intel
26 Pepsi 12.88 18.34 Home Depot
27 Oracle 12.44 18.1 SAP
28 UPS 12.01 17.95 Gillette
29 Nike 12 17.81 Mercedes
30 Budweiser 11.65 17.81 Oracle
31 Dell 11.55 17.46 HSBC
32 JP Morgan 11.43 16.65 Tesco
33 Apple 11.03 16.46 ICBC
34 SAP 10.85 16.26 Verizon Wireless
35 Goldman Sachs 10.66 16.06 Starbucks
36 Canon 10.58 15.47 Honda
37 Morgan Stanley 10.34 13.9 Dell
38 IKEA 10.08 13.69 Bank of China
39 UBS 9.83 13.62 Royal Bank of Canada
40 Kellogg's 9.34 13.37 Porsche
41 Ford 8.98 13.21 Deutsche Bank
42 Philips 7.74 13.2 Yahoo!
43 Siemens 7.73 12.93 eBay
44 Nintendo 7.73 12.74 Samsung
45 Harley-Davidson 7.71 12.63 Ford
46 Gucci 7.69 12.3 L'Oréal
47 AIG 7.49 12.09 Banco Santander
48 Ebay 7.45 11.76 Pepsi
49 Axa 7.32 11.71 Carrefour
50 Accenture 7.29 11.66 Merrill Lynch
51 L'Oreal 7.04 11.59 UBS
52 MTV 6.9 11.56 Target
53 Heinz 6.54 11.54 ING
54 Volkswagen 6.51 11.41 Canon
55 Yahoo! 6.06 11.39 Sony
56 Xerox 6.05 11.2 Morgan Stanley
57 Colgate 6.02 11.2 Chevrolet
58 Chanel 5.83 11.19 Nissan
59 Wrigley's 5.77 11.18 Chase
60 KFC 5.68 10.79 Motorola
61 GAP 5.48 10.76 China Construction Bank
62 Amazon.com 5.41 10.53 Accenture
63 Nestle 5.31 10.29 Nike
64 Zara 5.16 10.27 Harley-Davidson
65 Avon 5.1 10.04 Wachovia
66 Caterpillar 5.05 9.98 Budweiser
67 Danone 5.01 9.92 Orange
68 Audi 4.86 9.51 Marks & Spencer
69 Adidas 4.76 9.31 FedEx
70 Kleenex 4.6 9.26 Cingular Wireless
71 Rolex 4.58 9.11 Siemens
72 Hyundai 4.45 8.74 State Farm
73 Hermes 4.25 8.71 H&M
74 Pizza Hut 4.25 8.49 JP Morgan
75 Porsche 4.23 8.44 TIM
76 Reuters 4.19 8.24 Goldman Sachs
77 Motorola 4.14 8.05 T-Mobile
78 Panasonic 4.13 7.71 Colgate
79 Tiffany 4 7.5 Chanel
80 Allianz 3.95 7.43 Subway
81 ING 3.88 7.37 IKEA
82 Kodak 3.87 7.2 Royal Bank Of Scotland
83 Cartier 3.85 7.03 VW
84 BP 3.79 7.02 Cartier
85 Moet & Chandon 3.73 6.94 Hermes
86 Kraft 3.73 6.67 Best Buy
87 Hennessy 3.63 6.61 Barclays
88 Starbucks 3.63 6.56 Avon
89 Duracell 3.6 6.52 Gucci
90 Johnson & Johnson 3.44 6.47 Zara
91 Smirnoff 3.37 6.13 WaMu
92 Lexus 3.35 5.96 Amazon
93 Shell 3.33 5.93 BP
94 Prada 3.28 5.88 AIG
95 Burberry 3.22 5.62 ABN AMRO
96 NIVEA 3.11 5.57 Auchan
97 LG 3.1 5.54 Asda
98 Nissan 3.07 5.42 Lexus
99 Polo RL 3.04 5.41 Esprit
100 Hertz 3.02 5.39 Rolex
"Houston, we have a problem." The two charts vary in many aspects, which means either one, or both of them, is dead wrong. Two big issues:
- The total value of brands differs significantly. By 38.27%
- There are quite a few big discrepancies. Nevermind the ranking, I'm talking about the value. The top ten biggest deltas (BGB minus BRANDZ) are a hilarious list:
- Google -48.6
- IBM 23.52
- Coca-Cola 21.19
- Marlboro -17.89
- Apple -13.7
- Starbucks -12.69
- UPS -12.57
- Intel 12.24
- GE -10.32
- Citi -10.27
If the two consultants don't even get close to valuing such salient brands as Coke, IBM, Marlboro and Google, there's definitely something rotten in Denmark. We're talking tens of billions of dollars here, ya know?
So I got an idea. Based on the two charts, I'm going to compile my own. You can call it Stefan's Global Brandz ;) Here are my two simple rules:
- Only take into account brands whose values differ (in percentages) by less than the difference between the total values of the two charts. This year, the BGB total is $1,155bn, while BRANDZ are together valued at $1,597bn. As such, the 38.27% margin is my reference.
- Calculate the compound brand value as the average of its two brand values (the BGB and the BRANDZ ones). Rank them accordingly. The result:
- Microsoft 56.82
- GE 56.72
- Toyota 32.75
- Nokia 32.68
- Mercedes 31.26
- McDonald's 30.22
- Disney 25.89
- BMW 23.68
- HP 23.59
- American Express 21.96
- Louis Vuitton 21.5
- Gillette 19.18
- Cisco 18.95
- HSBC 17.46
- Honda 16.73
- Samsung 14.79
- Merrill Lynch 13
- Dell 12.72
- Pepsi 12.32
- Sony 12.14
- Nike 11.14
- Canon 10.99
- Budweiser 10.81
- Morgan Stanley 10.77
- UBS 10.71
- Goldman Sachs 9.45
- Harley-Davidson 8.99
- IKEA 8.72
- JP Morgan 8.49
- Siemens 8.42
- Gucci 7.1
- Colgate 6.86
- VW 6.77
- AIG 6.68
- Chanel 6.66
- Avon 5.83
- Zara 5.81
- Amazon 5.68
- Rolex 4.98
These are the brands whose values are the most certain. If you feel frustrated about big names being left out in my chart, then you should start asking serious questions about how brand values are calculated by the two perpetrators. But when it comes to methodologies, I'm not going anywhere near opening Pandora's box--Interbrand and Millward-Brown are explicit enough about each other. Suffice to say the two are, at least on a grand scale, comparable, and yet they deliver starkly different results, as you have noticed if you still read this.
Finally, let's give BGB one extra minute, since it's got some history behind it. Last year, I scrutinized its entire evolution here on this blog, so the question now is: what bringeth forth this year? Well, here's what.
As for the winners,
- The Supernova's still there. Google grew by 44% and it's also BRANDZ'S number 1. Frankly, I don't know where Sergei and Larry are going to stop, if ever.
- Samsung and EBay are braking, while other peers (banking folks such as HSBC, Merrill-Lynch and UBS) are keeping pace, at pretty much the same speed with Nivea, seemingly no longer content to be part of a slow-growing establishment.
- HP is solidly in black, while Apple did manage to come up with something just as good as (if not better than) the iPod.
- Motorola is the new Rollercoaster and yes, I was right to predict last year that Dell was going South. It did.
- Expect Zara to feature more prominently next year. And Starbucks to list under strong winds.
And for the losers,
- The best news is, most of them are recovering, led by Nintendo (Wii, the people, know all too well why). Nintendo, Sony and VW have indeed reached firm land, but Levi's shrunk, possibly beyond repair.
- Heinz is less of a Sloth this year, unlike Pizza Hut and Intel.
- Lastly, Kodak, Gap and particularly Ford are deep-diving, much like in 2006, with the latter headed straight to the Marianas Trench.
Whew, long post!
