Tech Triumphs with Google, Microsoft, Apple and IBM Scoring Top Marks in Millward Brown's Ranking of the World's Most Valuable Brands

NEW YORK and LONDON, April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Strong brands prove their resilience to recession in the fifth annual Millward Brown Optimor BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands ranking released today. When most key financial indicators plummeted, the value of the top 100 brands rose by four percent in the last year to more than $2 trillion.  The BrandZ Top 100, commissioned by WPP, is the only valuation in the world that takes into account customers' opinions on brands and demonstrates this with a dollar value.

"In the past, many companies were quick to cut their marketing spend during a down economy," said Joanna Seddon, CEO of Millward Brown Optimor.  "A new trend has emerged in the wake of the recession as more companies realized the importance of maintaining and even increasing budgets to support brand loyalty and engagement."

Other key findings include:

• Tech Takes All: Technology brands demonstrated their pervasiveness in our daily lives.  Google leads as the Most Valuable Global Brand worth $114 billion. IBM was second at $86 billion, an increase of 30 percent. In third place, Apple's brand value grew by 32 percent and is now worth $83 billion, Microsoft was fourth with a value of $76 billion.
• Social Media in your Face(book): Facebook, the popular social networking site, entered the technology sector ranking for the first year with a brand value of $5.5 billion.  Use of social media was a key trend across many of the successful brands this year, for example, HSBC's highly successful Expat Explorer online community.
• All the BRICs in the Wall: The first Indian brand, ICICI Bank, enters the Top 100 at number 45. This is the first year that all members of the BRICs have been represented with new entrants from China, Russia and Brazil.
• Banking on Brands: Taking the BrandZ Top 100 as a portfolio and comparing it to the S&P 500 over the last five years reveals that $1000 invested in the BrandZ Portfolio in 2006 would now be worth $1185 compared to $885 invested in the S&P 500, proving that strong brands outperform the stock market.
• Strong Brands Bounce Back Higher: Brands such as Samsung, the highest riser with an 80 percent growth in Brand Value, and Starbucks with an increase of 17 percent are evidence that businesses with strong brands are able to recover from adversity faster.

Commenting on the ranking, Eileen Campbell, Global CEO of Millward Brown said: "This ranking has elevated the importance of building brands among some of the world's most successful companies. CEOs and CFOs around the world should be asking their brand and marketing teams how they can leverage brand to both protect and grow the business."

Download the complete BrandZ ranking, including regional and category breakdowns.  The rankings are also available as a free application for the iPhone, Nokia and BlackBerry from www.brandz.com/mobile.

About the BrandZ Most Valuable Brands Ranking

Developed for WPP's operating companies by Millward Brown Optimor, the BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands ranking is now in its fifth year.  It is the only study to combine measures of brand equity based on interviews with over a million consumers globally about  thousands of global "consumer facing" and business-to-business brands with a rigorous analysis of the financial and business performance of each company (using data from Bloomberg and Datamonitor) to separate the value that brand plays in driving business revenue and market capitalisation. Consumer perception of a brand is a key input in determining brand value because brands are a combination of business performance, product delivery, clarity of positioning, and leadership.  

The ranking takes into account regional variations since, even for truly global brands, measures of brand contribution might differ substantially across countries.

About Millward Brown

Millward Brown is one of the world's leading research agencies and is expert in effective advertising, marketing communications, media and brand equity research.  Through the use of an integrated suite of validated research solutions — both qualitative and quantitative — Millward Brown helps clients build strong brands and services.  Millward Brown has more than 78 offices in 51 countries.  Additional practices include Millward Brown's Global Media Practice (media effectiveness unit), Millward Brown Optimor (focused on helping clients maximize the returns on their brand and marketing investments) and Dynamic Logic (the world leader in digital marketing effectiveness). Millward Brown is part of Kantar, WPP's insight, information and consultancy group.

About WPP

WPP is the world's largest communications services group.  Through its operating companies, the Group provides a comprehensive range of advertising and marketing services including advertising; media investment management; consumer insight; public relations and public affairs; branding and identity; healthcare communications; direct, digital, promotion and relationship marketing and specialist communications.  The company employs over 138,000 people (including associates) in 2,400 offices in 107 countries.  For more information, visit www.wpp.com.

SOURCE Millward Brown Optimor