I am a great believer in keeping abreast of what other agencies are doing and reporting. After all, nobody has a monopoly of wisdom, and there are some very good reasons why large agencies have been successful.
One of my favourites is the Millward Brown Brandz report (something I became addicted to when I briefly worked for MB a few years ago). The Brandz report is based on about 1 million interviews, covering 40,000 brands across 31 countries.
The Millward Brown website has a taster version of the BrandZ report, listing the top 100 brands globally, plus the top few brands by region and category. Useful background reading for any researcher IMHO.
The top ranked brand, globally, was Google, a finding which reflects the importance of the Internet and the growing dominance of Google. Other interesting (in my mind) findings were:
Top Global Mobile/Wireless Brand, China Mobile (not Vodafone, NTT, Verizon, or Orange).
Top Car Brand Toyota, just ahead of BMW and Mercedes.
Top European Brand was Nokia
My main use these days is to keep myself aware of changes in salience across markets. It is also useful as a first stab at competitive arrays, especially when clients come up with a set that seems to focused on their perception of the their competitors, rather than consumers perceptions of competitors.
Posted by: Ray Poynter | May 08, 2007 at 12:25 AM
I always wonder what I can do with this kind of brand ranking. even having worked briefly with MB in the past. Its interesting, but seems to lack actionbility.
What can we learn from such big brand lists?
Martin
Posted by: martin Silcock | May 07, 2007 at 04:56 PM