The world’s most valuable brands in 2017

Mapped ... eight of the top 10 brands on Brand Finance’s 2017 list are from the United States

Image: REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

For the last five years, Apple held on to the title of the world’s most valuable brand. Then this year, the iPhone maker lost the top spot to Google, according to consultancy Brand Finance’s Global 500 rankings.

As Apple’s brand value tumbled 27% to $107.1 billion in 2016, Google’s increased to $109.5 billion. Amazon, with 53% brand value growth, was close behind at $106.4 billion.

Image: Brand Finance Global 500 2017

Eight of the top 10 brands on Brand Finance’s 2017 list are American, reflecting the global dominance of US brands.

So where does this leave the rest of the world?

Visualizing brands as countries

Using Brand Finance’s ranking, cost information website HowMuch.net has taken the most valuable brands in selected countries and turned them into a map. Each country is sized to reflect the global value of its biggest brand.

After Google, the next most valuable national brand is South Korea’s Samsung, which is in sixth place on the Global 500 list at $66.2 billion. Then it’s Chinese bank ICBC, ranked 10th, with a brand value of $47.8 billion.

Image: howmuch.net

Car-makers Toyota (Japan) and BMW (Germany) are next, with brand values of $46.3 billion and $37.1 billion, respectively. Shell, the multinational oil and gas company based in the Netherlands, also features prominently, at $36.8 billion.

The top brands of most countries, however, are worth less than $25 billion. Across Latin America, the most valuable brand is Mexican energy company Pemex, at $8.5 billion. In Asia, it’s India’s Tata conglomerate, at $12.9 billion. No African brands appear on the map.

The world’s most powerful brands

Lego may have a relatively modest $7.6 billion brand value, but when it comes to sheer power Denmark’s biggest brand punches well above its weight.

Brand Finance’s Brand Strength Index (BSI) awards brands a mark out of 100. Lego gets high scores across a range of metrics such as familiarity, loyalty, promotion, marketing investment, staff satisfaction and corporate reputation.

Image: REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer

The colour-coding on the map indicates brand strength, with Lego and Google (the most powerful brands) in dark blue. Many well-known brands including Samsung, BMW, Shell, Ikea and Nestle are on the next rung down, in light blue.

With marks ranging between 70 and 80, market-leading brands including Santander, Tata and Vodafone, are in pink. Only two top national brands, Taiwan Semiconductor and Thailand’s PTT, coloured red, have scores of less than 70.

7 Mobile Commerce Trends To Watch In 2016

As the mobile device continues to become a larger part of shoppers’ day-to-day lifestyles, retailers have to find ways to leverage these devices to boost sales, traffic and conversion rates.

Mobile retail optimization solution provider Moovweb highlighted seven mobile commerce trends to expect moving forward into 2016.

1. Physical and online worlds will continue to converge: Retailers are now offering numerous options as part of their omnichannel services, including curbside pickup, online reservation services, same-day delivery and beacon-enabled features.

2. Social commerce will remain hot, but will buy buttons deliver? As much as 60% of consumers’ time spent on social media is on mobile, making the integration of both channels a vital part of retailers’ plans headed further into 2016. However, it appears buy buttons are still struggling to break out as a potential byproduct of this integration.

3. The mobile web will continue to outpace apps: While 85% of time is spent in mobile apps, only 20% to 30% of a retailer’s mobile sales come from the app, according to Forrester Research. In fact, Forrester indicated that 56% of retailers said mobile apps would not play a major part in their mobile strategy.

4. Consumer expectations will drive retailers to focus on mobile moments: In 2016, consumers’ expectations of the mobile retail experience are higher than ever:

• 64% of smartphone users expect a site to load in four seconds or less;
• 40% have turned to a competitor’s site for a better mobile experience; and
• 25% of online shoppers abandon the cart if a site’s navigation is too complex.

5. Loyalty will eclipse convenience in driving mobile payments: Although mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, Android Pay and Walmart Pay were released within the past 18 months, the wallets have been slow to take off in general. As of now, the technology hasn’t offered much incremental convenience that would persuade shoppers to use them during the payments process. With that said, eMarketer expects mobile payments to grow 210% in 2016.

6. IoT still chasing full potential, but wearables poised for growth:Gartner expects that in 2016, 6.4 billion “things” will be connected to the Internet, marking a 30% increase from 2015. The IDC forecasts worldwide spending on the IoT will reach $1.32 trillion by 2019.

7. The growth of mobile will force brands to optimize mobile growth: With mobile commerce expected to grow at a rate 300% faster than traditional e-Commerce, according to discount and deals site Coupofy, more brands are likely to focus on implementing a seamless checkout experience in the coming year.

Best Global Brands 2015

Valentina Pasquali

The American Marketing Association defines a “brand” as “a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.” Some marketing researchers assert that brands are one of the most valuable assets that a company has.

According to Millward Brown Optimor, “strong brands have the power to create business value. They impact much more than revenues and profit margins. Strong brands create competitive advantages by commanding a price premium and decrease the cost of entry into new markets and categories. They reduce business risk and help attract and retain talented staff.”

“Brand equity” is defined by the American Marketing Association as “the value of a brand” (although not in the financial sense of “value”), while, according to P. Kotler and K. Keller in their book Marketing Management, it is “the added value endowed to products and services.” Keller, in Strategic Brand Management, writes that a brand “has positive customer-based brand equity when consumers react more favorably to a product and the way it is marketed when the brand is identified than when it is not.” David Aaker (Managing Brand Equity) calls it “the set of assets and liabilities linked to a brand’s name and symbol that adds to or subtracts from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or that firm’s customers.”

The various definitions are important to define the concept but do not lead to a single measure of brand equity.

“Brand value” is often confused with brand equity, but the former refers more specifically to the financial value of a brand. Therefore, Kotler and Keller define “brand valuation” as “an estimate of the total financial value of the brand.”

There is no standardized or accepted definition of brand value or brand valuation. Nevertheless, Interbrand and Millward Brown Optimor (MBO) have developed rankings that are well respected. Interbrand characterizes its method as “proven, straightforward and profound. It examines brands through the lens of financial strength, the importance of the brand in driving consumer selection, and the likelihood of ongoing revenue generated by the brand.” Millward Brown Optimor calls its BrandZ “the most reliable, comprehensive and useful brand valuation ranking available,” a database that provides a “detailed, quantified, understanding of consumer decision-making worldwide.”

MBO | InterBrand

MillwardBrown Optimor 2015 BrandZ Top 100

Rank	Brand	Category	Brand Value ($M)
1	Apple	Technology	246,992
2	Google	Technology	173,652
3	Microsoft	Technology	115,500
4	IBM	Technology	93,987
5	Visa	Payments	91,962
6	AT&T	Telecom Providers	89,492
7	Verizon	Telecom Providers	86,009
8	Coca-Cola	Soft Drinks	83,841
9	McDonald's	Fast Food	81,162
10	Marlboro	Tobacco	80,352
11	Tencent	Technology	76,572
12	Facebook	Technology	71,121
13	Alibaba Group	Retail	66,375
14	Amazon.com	Retail	62,292
15	China Mobile	Telecom Providers	59,895
16	Wells Fargo	Regional Banks	59,310
17	General Electric	Conglomerate	59,272
18	UPS	Logistics	51,798
19	Disney	Entertainment	42,962
20	Mastercard	Payments	40,188
21	Baidu	Technology	40,041
22	ICBC	Regional Banks	38,808
23	Vodofone	Telecom Providers	38,461
24	SAP	Technology	38,225
25	American Express	Payments	38,093
26	Walmart	Retail	35,245
27	T-mobile	Telecom Providers	33,834
28	Nike	Apparel	29,717
29	Starbucks	Fast Food	29,313
30	Toyota	Cars	28,913
31	The Home Depot	Retail	27,705
32	Louis Vuitton	Luxury	27,445
33	Budweiser	Beer	26,657
34	BMW	Cars	26,349
35	HSBC	Global Banks	24,029
36	RBC	Regional Banks	23,989
37	Pampers	Baby Care	23,757
38	L'Oréal Paris	Personal Care	23,376
39	HP	Technology	23,039
40	Subway	Fast Food	22,561
41	China Construction Bank	Regional Banks	22,065
42	Zara	Apparel	22,036
43	Mercedes-Benz	Cars	21,786
44	Oracle	Technology	21,680
45	Samsung	Technology	21,602
46	Movistar	Telecom Providers	21,215
47	TD Bank	Regional Banks	20,638
48	Commonwealth Bank	Regional Banks	20,599
49	ExxonMobil	Oil & Gas	20,412
50	Agricultural Bank of China	Regional Banks	20,189
51	Accenture	Technology	20,183
52	Gillette	Personal Care	19,737
53	FedEx	Logistics	19,566
54	Shell	Oil & Gas	18,943
55	Hermes Paris	Luxury	18,938
56	Intel	Technology	18,385
57	Colgate	Personal Care	17,977
58	BT	Telecom Providers	17,953
59	ANZ Bank	Regional Banks	17,702
60	Citi	Global Banks	17,486
61	Orange	Telecom Providers	17,384
62	China Life	Insurance	17,365
63	Sinopec	Oil & Gas	17,267
64	Ikea	Retail	17,025
65	Bank of China	Regional Banks	16,438
66	DHL	Logistics	16,301
67	CISCO	Technology	16,060
68	Pingan	Insurance	15,959
69	SIEMENS	Technology	15,796
70	Huawei	Technology	15,335
71	PetroChina	Oil & Gas	15,022
72	US BANK	Regional Banks	14,786
73	eBay	Retail	14,171
74	HDFC Bank	Regional Banks	14,027
75	H&M	Apparel	13,827
76	Gucci	Luxury	13,800
77	J.P. Morgan	Global Banks	13,522
78	Honda	Cars	13,332
79	Pepsi	Soft Drinks	13,134
80	Ford	Cars	13,106
81	BP	Oil & Gas	12,938
82	Telstra	Telecom Providers	12,701
83	KFC	Fast Food	12,649
84	Westpac	Regional Banks	12,420
85	Linkedin	Technology	12,200
86	Santander	Global Banks	12,181
87	Woolworths	Retail	11,818
88	PayPal	Payments	11,806
89	Chase	Regional Banks	11,661
90	Aldi	Retail	11,660
91	ING	Global Banks	11,560
92	Twitter	Technology	11,447
93	Nissan	Cars	11,411
94	Red Bull	Soft Drinks	11,375
95	Bank of America	Regional Banks	11,335
96	NTT DOCOMO	Telecom Providers	11,223
97	Costco Wholesale	Retail	11,214
98	Soft Bank	Telecom Providers	11,131
99	China Telecom	Telecom Providers	11,075
100	Scotiabank	Regional Banks	11,044

Interbrand | Best Global Brands 2015 | Top 100

Rank	Brand	Sector	Brand Value (M)
1	Apple	Technology	170,276
2	Google	Technology	120,314
3	Coca-Cola	Soft Drinks	78,423
4	Microsoft	Technology	67,670
5	IBM	Technology	65,095
6	Toyota	Cars	49,048
7	Samsung	Technology	45,297
8	General Electric	Conglomerate	42,267
9	McDonald's	Fast Food	39,809
10	Amazon.com	Retail	37,948
11	BMW	Cars	37,212
12	Mercedes-Benz	Cars	36,711
13	Disney	Entertainment	36,514
14	Intel	Technology	35,415
15	Cisco	Technology	29,854
16	Oracle	Technology	27,283
17	Nike	Apparel	23,070
18	HP	Technology	23,056
19	Honda	Cars	22,975
20	Louis Vuitton	Luxury	22,250
21	H&M	Apparel	22,222
22	Gillette	Personal Care	22,218
23	Facebook	Technology	22,029
24	Pepsi	Soft Drinks	19,622
25	American Express	Payments	18,922
26	SAP	Technology	18,768
27	IKEA	Retail	16,541
28	Pampers	Baby Care	15,267
29	UPS	Logistics	14,723
30	ZARA	Apparel	14,031
31	Budweiser	Beer	13,943
32	eBay	Retail	13,940
33	J.P. Morgan	Global Banks	13,749
34	Kelloggs	FMCG	12,637
35	Volkswagen	Cars	12,545
36	Nescafé	Beverages	12,257
37	HSBC	Global Banks	11,656
38	Ford	Cars	11,578
39	Hyundai	Cars	11,293
40	Canon	Electronics	11,278
41	Hermes Paris	Luxury	10,944
42	Accenture	Technology	10,800
43	L'Oréal Paris	Personal Care	10,798
44	Audi	Cars	10,328
45	Citi	Global Banks	9,784
46	Goldman Sachs	Financial Services	9,526
47	Philips	Electronics	9,400
48	AXA	Financial Services	9,254
49	Nissan	Cars	9,082
50	Gucci	Luxury	8,882
51	Danone	FMCG	8,632
52	Nestlé	FMCG	8,588
53	Siemens	Technology	8,553
54	Allianz	Financial Services	8,498
55	Colgate	Personal Care	8,464
56	Porsche	Cars	8,055
57	Cartier	Luxury	7,924
58	Sony	Electronics	7,702
59	3M	Diversified	7,243
60	Morgan Stanley	Financial Services	7,083
61	Visa	Payments	6,870
62	Adidas	Sporting Goods	6,811
63	Thomson Reuters	Media	6,583
64	Discovery Channel	Media	6,509
65	Panasonic	Electronics	6,436
66	Tiffany & Co	Luxury	6,306
67	Starbucks	Restaurants	6,266
68	Adobe	Technology	6,257
69	Prada	Luxury	6,222
70	Santander	Restaurants	6,097
71	Xerox	Business Services	6,033
72	Caterpillar	Diversified	5,976
73	Burberry	Luxury	5,873
74	KIA Motors	Cars	5,666
75	Kentucky Fried Chicken	Fast Food	5,639
76	MasterCard	Payments	5,551
77	Johnson and Johnson	FMCG	5,533
78	Shell	Oil & Gas	5,530
79	Harley-Davidson	Automotive	5,460
80	DHL	Logistics	5,391
81	Sprite	Beverages	5,365
82	Lego	FMCG	5,362
83	Deere & Company	Diversified	5,208
84	Jack Daniels	Alcohol	5,161
85	Chevrolet	Cars	5,133
86	FedEx	Logistics	5,130
87	Land Rover	Cars	5,109
88	Huawei	Technology	4,952
89	Heineken	Alcohol	4,822
90	MTV	Media	4,763
91	Ralph Lauren	Apparel	4,629
92	Johnnie Walker	Alcohol	4,540
93	Corona	Alcohol	4,456
94	Smirnoff	Alcohol	4,407
95	Kleenex	FMCG	4,330
96	Hugo Boss	Apparel]	4,270
97	PayPal	Payments	4,251
98	MINI	Cars	4,243
99	Moët et Chandon	Alcohol	4,131
100	Lenovo	Technology	4,114