Interbrand Best Global Brands 2019

This week Interbrand released its Best Global Brands rankings for 2019.

Interbrand has been studying the relationship between brands and business performance through its unique valuation methodology for more than 20 years.

The Interbrand methodology looks at both the economic value of brands for their owners, and the experience value for consumers, which is somewhat intangible but not entirely arbitrary.

The elements of Interbrand's calculation are (1) which consumer needs and demands are met (2) through which experiences (3) with what business model and returns.

The Interbrand framework isn’t just for measurement, but also for helping businesses create roadmaps to stronger brand and customer experiences.

Only around a third of the brands in the original 2000 report remain on the results table as the business and cultural context shift endlessly year after year.

The drivers of this change include the abundance of choice, the speed of consumer adoption, the erosion of loyalty and generally the shifting frame of reference.

For this year's frame of reference, think Uber, Spotify, Netflix, Apple Credit Cards.

Compared with the original rankings, the cumulative value of the world’s top one hundred brands has exploded from $988B in 2000 to $2.1T in 2019.

The study is more than a ranking table. There is an advisory piece to it as well. This year’s consulting takes the form of what Interbrand calls Iconic Moves.

Iconic Moves are big shifts that create significant change because, as they say in the report, 'kaizen is no longer enough to keep up.' (In their view, kaizen means small consecutive improvements that return small incremental gains.)

Iconic Moves work when they change customer expectations, force an internal commitment to change within the brand/company, and create a temporary monopoly.

Examples of Iconic Moves made by Amazon would be:

2005, launched Amazon Prime

2007, launched Kindle

2014, launched Echo/Alexa, virtual assistant

2017, acquired Whole Foods, bundle with Amazon Prime

Although brand experts like to quibble with the Interbrand methodology (for one reason, because the economic part of their valuation doesn’t neatly correlate with the intangible values of brands/companies listed on the stock exchange), IMO it is the most consistent and best-designed among its peers.

More on the Interbrand website, here …

https://www.interbrand.com/best-brands/best-global-brands/2019/