Advertising Age had an interesting piece today entitled Recession Doesn’t Dent Total Value of Top 100 Brands, which is based on Millward Brown Optimor’s annual BrandZ Report. Each year MB Optimor releases their list of “the world’s most valuable brands measured by their dollar value.” As they put it, “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.”
According to AdAge, despite the recession the top spots have not changed very much, nor has the overall total of the Top 100. The new rankings won’t be officially released until Wednesday, but here’s the Top 10. The number in parentheses is their rank last year.
- Google (1)
- Microsoft (3)
- Coca-Cola (4)
- IBM (6)
- McDonald’s (8)
- Apple (7)
- ChinaMobile (5)
- General Electric (2)
- Vodafone (11)
- Marlboro (10)
Some more analysis from the AdAge article:
All told, the value of the top 100 brands, which ranges from the ubiquitous search engine at the top to Lowes at the bottom, was about $2 trillion and didn’t suffer the decline one might expect in a recessionary environment.
There was, however, more volatility in the top 100 this year than in the past, with 15 brands dropping out. They were mostly car brands, such as Chevrolet, Ford and Volkswagen, and financial ones such as AXA, AIG and, of course, Merrill Lynch and Wachovia. They were replaced by brands such as Nintendo and Pampers.
Toward the end of the piece, finally they revealed what happened in the big beer world.
The beer category was dominated by Anheuser-Busch InBev. Bud Light was the largest brand, followed by Budweiser, and Stella Artois came in fourth behind Heineken. Miller Lite came in seventh, growing only 2% compared with double-digit growth for the A-B InBev brands.
So this is what we know so far about the 2009 rankings:
- Bud Light
- Budweiser
- Heineken
- Stella Artois
- ?
- ?
- Miller Lite
Here’s Millward Brown Optimor’s explanation of how they calculate their rankings.
Here’s the beer brand rankings from last year, 2008.
- Budweiser
- Bud Light
- Heineken
- Corona
- Stella Artois
- Guinness
- Miller Lite
- Skol
- Amstel
- Beck’s
- Cruzcampo
- Kronenbourg 1664
- Coors Light
- Labatt’s
- Baltika
- Carlsberg
- Brahma
- Miller Genuine Draft (MGD)
- Foster’s
- Molson
In the Top 100 of all companies for last year, Budweiser (including both Bud & Bud Light) ranked 70th and was the only beer brand to make the overall list.
Tune in later in the week to find out the new rankings for 2009.