Businessweek’s Top Brands
The 2007 Business week brand rankings came out today and to little surprise Coca-Cola was still at the top for the 7th year in a row. There was very little movement in the top ten as the same ten companies at the top in 2006 are once again at the top in 2007, only in a slightly different order. There were only two changes: Nokia fell two spots from 5 to 7, and McDonalds leapfrogged Disney to go from 9 to 8. Nintendo was one of the big winners this year with an 18% increase in brand value, mainly due to their ultra-successful launch of the Wii console. Not only was this gaming system a hit with their younger target market, but it was also unexpectedly a hit amongst the older folks as well. Nintendo was able to add retirement communities to their customer base, something that hadn’t been seen with any previous video game console. Although Wii was a resounding success this year and outsold Microsoft’s X-Box 360 console, they still have a long way to go to pass up the software giant. Microsoft increased their brand value by 3%, due to the debut of the aforementioned X-Box 360, but more importantly the arrival of their long awaited (and long delayed) Windows Vista operating system.
Two (Not very bold) 2008 Predictions
Google will finally crack the top ten in 2008. They increased their brand value by an astronomical 44%, almost twice as much as anybody else in the top 100 (Zara had the 2nd highest growth margin at 22% growth). I also think that Apple (21% year over year growth) will be joining them, or possibly slightly behind. Taking into consideration the recent release of their iPhone and continued success of the iPod, it will be tough to keep them from rising. What do you think 2008 will look like?
You can see more information and analysis about the 2007 rankings here.