How do you know what the top brands are? Do you want to know retail, global, or regional? Looking at trends in reports for top brands is very interesting. Your own thinking of what they are is likely colored by where you live and/or travel. If you see Starbucks everywhere you go and travel extensively, you may think Starbucks is one of the top global brands.

Interbrand is a consultant company that publishes a yearly ranking of brands based on a brand value they calculate with their own criteria. The Global 100 is published each year in Business Week.

Coca-Cola, the ubiquitous soft drink company has been the top brand for many years.

The aforementioned and also seemingly ubiquitous Starbucks ranked 97 in the 2010 listing. Is that surprising to you? It was to me, I passed at least 7 Starbucks yesterday in my travels. It all made sense though after looking at how the data is calculated. Part of the criteria is based on a profit calculation. So, a company will be higher on the list if its profits are higher. Brand value for Coca-Cola was listed at 70,452 (m) and for Starbucks it was 3,339 (m). Quite a spread in valuations!!

Not surprisingly, 9 of the top 10 global brands are from the United States where dollar profits are higher.

Interbrand also creates retail brand rankings by important retail areas such as the United States, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Asia-Pacific. Retail companies are not part of the global brand rankings so the companies are all different between the listings. If they were, US based Wal-Mart with a brand value of 142,030 (m) would be the top dog by a wide margin. Also, Asia-Pacific number 1 Woolworth’s with 4,015 (m) would be the only Asia-Pacific entry at 78.



Again, all of these values are based on the dollar to normalize the data. The value of Woolworths from Australia would rank 23 on the United States Top 50 Retail list. Are you surprised that there is no representation from India or South Korea in the top 10? Australia is holding strong with 3 of the top 4, but will China’s continued emergence threaten that?

Of course, competition is important. Another ranking list compiled annually is the BrandZ rankings by MillwardBrown. I liked this list for one glaring difference between it and Interbrand’s…. Apple!! The personal device juggernaut was not in the Top 100 Global Brands or Top 50 US Retail Brands from Interbrand. Apple ranks number one in the Brand Z ranking with a value of 153,285 (m).



Google, IBM, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, and GE are in the Top 10 for both Interbrand and BrandZ, it would be hard to argue their global brand strength. Interestingly, China Mobile, the largest mobile phone operator in China is the only non United States based company for BrandZ. Each listing has its own criteria and they are different. I encourage you to read the full reports if you have time. The links are posted below.


By: Matt Flax - Senior Business Advisor at DragonGate.Asia


Interbrand Top 100 Global Brands 2010

Interbrand Top Retail Brands 2011

BrandZ Top 100 Global Brands