Best Global Brands 2010

I attended a talk at UCT Graduate School of Business last night by Jeremy Sampson of Interbrand Sampson fame. An inspirational character, especially when I learned that his humble beginnings were as a graphic designer just like me, or visual communicator, as he called it.

The talk focussed on the Interbrand Sampson ‘Best Global Brands 2010‘ report which was recently released but just to set the stage, Jeremy gently explained his understanding of a brand now being the constant in a world of change. An example which surprised me was that of Coca-Cola, where the company was valued at $50 billion without the brand included in the equation but once the brand itself is included, it shoots up to $120 billion – wow! That’s one to make the accountants scratch their heads.

A simple example was given of coffee beans. In their simplest form they are worth only a few cents per cup but sold at your local gourmet coffee spot, those same coffee beans have been commoditised into something much more valuable. The Vida e Cafe or Seattle name really is worth something.

Moving on to the report, we see the Top 10 Brands as follows (http://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/Best-Global-Brands-2010.aspx):

1	Coca-Cola	70,452 ($m)
2	IBM	64,727 ($m)
3	Microsoft	60,895 ($m)
4	Google	43,557 ($m)
5	GE	42,808 ($m)
6	McDonald’s	33,578 ($m)
7	Intel	32,015 ($m)
8	Nokia	29,495 ($m)
9	Disney	28,731 ($m)
10	Hewlett-Packard	26,867 ($m)

Here, Jeremy highlighted that McDonald’s has not been as effected by the recession as Burger King was (Burger King have fallen out of the Top 100), probably due to their target market being slightly different and also that McDonald’s have continued to innovate. The other brand highlighted was Nokia, who have fallen from previous years, probably due to being late in coming to the market with a smartphone option.

The report also highlights the top risers and fallers for the year as follows:

Best Global Brands

Best performing sectors in 2010 are as follows:

Industry Insights

All in all, a very insightful session and I’d highly recommend downloading the full report here.