Electronics and drinks brands dominate Interbrand’s top 100 brand ranking – 06/08/05

USA. Many of the world’s top travel retail brands feature prominently in the BusinessWeek/Interbrand top 100 annual ranking of brands for 2005.

The list includes a strong presence of electronics brands such as Nokia (ranked sixth), Samsung (20), Sony (28), Apple (51) and Philips (53).

A simple marketing premise and a firm grasp of the brand identity underline the success of companies that make the biggest gain in this year’s ranking. “The names that gained the most in value focus ruthlessly on every detail of their brand, honing simple, cohesive identities that are consistent in every product,” said Business Week.

Samsung has posted the biggest gain in value of any Global 100 brand in five years – a surge of +186%, Interbrand noted. “The best example of brand building in this age of media fragmentation is Korean electronics maker Samsung,” it said. “Samsung surpassed Sony in this year’s ranking, a far more entrenched rival that once owned the electronics category.” [Story continued below table]

Brands were selected according to two criteria. They had to be global, generating significant earnings in the main global markets, and there had to be sufficient marketing and financial data publicly available for preparing a reasonable valuation.

“To even qualify for the list, each brand must have a value greater than US$1 billion, derive about a third of its earnings outside its home country, and have publicly available marketing data,” said Business Week. This explains the absence of major brands such as Visa (a rival of Mastercard and American Express), Wal-Mart, Mars and Procter & Gamble. Airlines are not ranked “because it’s too hard to separate their brand’s impact on sales from factors such as routes and schedules,” the magazine stressed.

The brand values are determined using a method formulated by Interbrand 17 years ago. Value is calculated as the net present value of earnings that the brand is expected to generate and secure in the future for the time frame from 1 July 2004 to 30 June 2005.

Marlboro, Philip Morris’s flagship cigarette brand, ranked an impressive 10th. Disney, a major license provider, ranked seventh after Nokia. In 52nd place, L’Oreal, the world’s biggest cosmetics company, towers above its rivals, with Chanel next in 65th place.

Louis Vuitton (ranked 18th) led the way for the fashion and leathergood sector. With the exception of mid-price brands such as Nike (30), Gap (40) and adidas (71), the fashion brands dominating the list are mainly renowned luxury good names such as Gucci (49), Hermes (82), Prada (93), Bvlgari (94) and Armani (95).

Drinks brands fare well, occupying the very top and bottom positions. Coca-Cola remains the world’s top brand for the fourth consecutive year. Rival brand Pepsi occupies the 23rd place, followed by Nescafe at 24th. Top alcohol brands include Budweiser (26), Hennessy (86), Smirnoff (88), Moet & Chandon (92) and Heineken (100).

From the watches and jewellery sector, Rolex ranked 72nd, followed by Tiffany & Co (81) and Cartier (89).

Chewing gum Wrigley’s ranked 57th, beating confectionery giants Nestle (66) and Kraft (69) in the food category.

The established brands have a lot to learn from the successful upstarts. The massive gains made by internet services brands (Yahoo!, eBay) and consumer electronic brands (Nokia, Samsung) speak volumes of the lifestyles of contemporary consumers, and how best to proposition a brand’s value to an increasingly tech-savvy audience.

“The best brand builders are also intensely creative in getting their message out,” observed Business Week. “Many of the biggest and most established brands… achieved their global heft decades ago by helping to pioneer the 30-second TV commercial. But it’s a different world now… The brands that rose to the top of our ranking… wove messages over multilple media channels and blurred the lines between ads and entertainment. These brands can be found in a host of new venues: the web, live events, cell phones and handheld computers.”

Note: Interbrand, a New York brand consultancy agency, offers services that help clients in the creation, enhancement, maintenance and valuation of their brands. It is the creative engine behind the marketing campaigns of renowned travel retail brands such as Pernod Ricard and BAA. It operates in 30 cities in more than 20 countries. Website: www.interbrand.com.