MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Apple Computer among top gainers in BusinessWeek’s 2005 Top 100 Global Brands list

eBay, HSBC, Samsung, and Apple are among this year’s top gainers in BusinessWeek’s annual ranking of The 100 Top Global Brands. For the fifth consecutive year, BusinessWeek has teamed up with Interbrand, a leading brand consultancy, to publish a ranking of The 100 Top Global Brands by dollar value. The 2005 rankings rewarded companies that focus ruthlessly on every detail of their brands, honing simple, cohesive identities that are consistent in every product, every market around the world, and every contact with consumers. Those that lost the most ground include Sony, Morgan Stanley, Volkswagen, and Hewlett-Packard.

Apple Computer is #41 on the 2005 list up from #43 in 2004 with a 16% change in brand value.

These days, ad-zapping consumers with TiVo, satellite radio, and pop-up ad blockers pose an enormous challenge to marketers trying to build new brands and nurture old ones. So how do you build a brand in a world in which consumers are increasingly in control of the media? The brands that rose to the top of this year’s ranking all had widely varied arsenals and were able to unleash different campaigns for different consumers in different media almost simultaneously. They wove messages over multiple media channels and blurred the lines between advertising and entertainment.

Perhaps the best example of brand building in this age of media fragmentation is Korean electronics maker Samsung. Over the past five years, No.20 Samsung has posted the biggest gain in value of any Global 100 brand, with a 186% surge. Even sweeter, Samsung surpassed No.28 Sony in this year’s ranking, a far more entrenched rival that once owned the electronics category.

Brand values were determined using the method Interbrand pioneered 17 years ago and has since used to value more than 3,500 brands. Value is calculated as the net present value of the earnings that the brand is expected to generate and secure in the future for the time frame from July 1, 2004 to June 30, 2005. In order to be included in the top global brands list, a brand had to be valued at greater than $2.1 billion. They were selected according to two criteria: First, the brands had to be global, generating significant earnings in the main global markets. Second, there had to be sufficient marketing and financial data publicly available for preparing a reasonable valuation.

Full list of Top 100 Global Brands here.

Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple Computer is the fastest growing brand in the world - June 14, 2005
What happens when world's No. 1 Apple brand is combined with No. 5 Intel brand? - June 13, 2005
Apple ousts Google as top global brand - January 30, 2005