Interbrand Ranks Brand Value: Coke Number 1, MSFT Number 3, Google Number 10

BusinessWeek and Interbrand have come out with their latest ranking of the value of global brands. The big winners, in terms of positive change in the value of the brand, were Google, Apple and Amazon in that order. The greatest losers included Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Citi, Ford and Gap.

The methodology for ranking the brands is described below.

Here are the top 10, showing their rankings compared with 2007:

Source: Interbrand (2008)

Here’s how Interbrand evaluates brands:

All brands [are] subject to the following criteria:

–There must be substantial publicly available financial data
–The brand must have at least one-third of revenues outside of its country-of-origin
–The brand must be a market-facing brand
–The Economic Value Added (EVA) must be positive
–The brand must not have a purely B2B single audience with no wider public profile and awareness

These criteria exclude brands such as Mars, which is privately held, or Walmart, which is not sufficiently global (it does business in some international markets but not under the Walmart brand).

The Interbrand method for valuing brands … examines brands through the lens of financial strength, importance in driving consumer selection, and the likelihood of ongoing branded revenue. Our method evaluates brands much like analysts would value any other asset: on the basis of how much they’re likely to earn in the future. There are three core components to our proprietary method:

–Financial Analysis
–Role of Brand Analysis
–Brand Strength Score

There are other brand studies and rankings in the market. For example, using a different methodology, Millward Brown named Google the world’s top brand in its annual “Top 100 Most Powerful Brands.”