Search Engine Land points a to a report stating that Google is now the world’s most powerful brand, as ranked by Millward Brown Optimor’s BRANDZ Top 100, with a brand value of $66.4 billion. Here are the top ten brands, listed along with their brand values:
- Google ($66.4 billion)
- General Electric ($61.9 billion)
- Microsoft ($55 billion)
- Coca-Cola ($44.1 billion)
- China Mobile ($41.2 billion)
- Marlboro ($39.2 billion)
- Wal-Mart ($36.9 billion)
- Citigroup ($33.7 billion)
- IBM ($33.6 billion)
- Toyota Motor ($33.4 billion)
Also worth mentioning: of the top 40, the three brands with the biggest increase in value over the past year pretty much make up George’s and my lifestyles:
- Google (brand rank 1, up 77%)
- Apple (brand rank 16, up 55%)
- Starbucks (brand rank 35, up 45%)
Did I really need a brand research company to tell me that Google is the number one brand? I suppose you can’t be ceratin without doing research and number-crunching, but I decided that Google had simply and complete won, period, a couple of years back while reading a magazine while waiting to get my hair cut. I was reading an interview with supermodel Linda Evangelista (pictured above) in which she says “Oh wait, let me Google it.”