BrandZ and
Millward-Brown have released a deep, download-worthy report on worldwide Brands:
Top 100 Most Powerful Brands (PDF)
The BrandZ Ranking is the result of Millward Brown Optimor’s robust brand valuation methodology. Ours is the first brand ranking to combine analysis of financial data with primary research findings. We do this because brand value depends on consumer sentiment as well as on a company’s ability to translate that sentiment into shareholder value.
Nigel Hollis unpacks it on his blog:
What do McDonald’s, Colgate, and Tide have in common?
To my mind, while the numbers may sound less impressive, the performance of brands like McDonald’s, Colgate and Tide is even more compelling. They are a testimony to the fact that innovation and adaptation are the lifeblood of successful global brands.
I have a thick, lumpy chapter about branding in my book. It’s not anti-branding, but warns readers about so-called branding experts who give you the impression that they wield some sort of wizardly 'branding wand' and can brand your new product out of thin air.
This report shows you that with few exceptions it’s hard work – requiring research, advertising, marketing, PR. All the grubby stuff. For example, McDonald’s has slowly and meticulously branded their restaurants. Different marketing/advertising techniques are used in different parts of the world. While every so often, as if by magic, a brand appears – as in the case of Google, of Starbucks. The real story is that they had unique products – and these two brands built themselves with very little input from branding ‘experts’. Down the line, they refined and molded their brands using standard branding techniques.
Read the Press Release.
Read the report.
I do the Facebook, MySpace, Twitter things mostly to keep up with what's going on out here in the ether. I'm not sure they'll last - or at least be as popular and influential for very much longer. They get boring, repetitive. When you get older, you have better things to do. And most young folks eventually get older, and are replaced by even younger folks who'll find other crazy things to do that'll be fun and exciting for them, so ....
Steve Hall of AdRants and AdGabber blogged this video produced by a young comedy group in England. What if real life were like Facebook? It got me laughing:
