Every company knows that their brand is important, but just how important can be hard to quantify. That is, unless you’re data firm Kantar, which every year applies analytics to that very question. The company’s annual BrandZ Report, now in its 20th year, ranks the top 100 global brands in the world and actually measures these brands’ contribution to their companies’ performance by analyzing extensive financial and brand equity data.
This year’s list of the most valuable global brands features familiar names, all of which have a powerful share of consumers’ minds and wallets: The Top 10, in descending order, are Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, Facebook, Instagram, McDonald’s, Oracle and Visa.
But what is the actual value of a strong brand to a company? Quite a lot, it turns out: “There’s very clear evidence that a brand is a company’s most valuable asset and needs to be nurtured and invested in,” said James May, Industry Executive for the Food & Beverage sector at Kantar on this week’s episode of the Retail Remix podcast.
“Brands within our Strong Brands portfolio have consistently outperformed the S&P 500, and crucially, strong brands are much more resilient to shocks and tend to bounce back from downturns much faster than your average brand,” May added. “We’ve seen that both in terms of the Great Recession, and also more recently with the post-pandemic recovery.”
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So how does a company nurture and grow its brand value? That’s exactly what May and his colleague Barry Thomas explore this week on Retail Remix, including:
- Why retail brands have surged in value recently;
- Why experience is now a crucial brand asset (in addition to more traditional assets like media, iconography and packaging);
- Whether the era of U.S. economic exceptionalism may be nearing an end and how China’s state-sponsored investments in brand-building are paying off;
- Why disruption is such a powerful brand-builder, as evidenced by brands like Amazon and ChatGPT; and
- How retailers can follow the playbook of brands like Walmart and Costco to build stronger, more meaningful connections with consumers.
Tune in for all this, as well as other insights on how the companies on this year’s BrandZ list have built such powerful brand equity — and how you can do the same.
