Animation: The Top 15 Global Brands (2000-2018)

Time travel back to the early-2000s, and a list of the world’s most respected brands might be surprising.

Tobacco company Marlboro is still one of the top 15 global brands with a value of $22 billion, while companies like Nokia and AT&T also help to round out the group.

Aside from Microsoft, the tech companies at the time were mostly focused on hardware and services. HP was considered a top global brand at the time, and even IBM was still making PCs until the year 2005.

The Platform Revolution

How times have changed.

In today’s animation from TheRankings, you can see how the list of the top 15 global brands has evolved over the last two decades or so.

The visible shift: as soon as Google hits the rankings in 2008 (2:21 in video), it becomes clear that the money is on the software side – particularly in coding software that ends up as a dominant consumer platform.

Shortly after, companies like Apple, Facebook, and Amazon enter the fold, quickly climbing to the top. Here are the final numbers for 2018 in terms of brand value, with data coming from Interbrand:

The Problem with Hardware

What’s the difference between the big hardware firms of old, and the successful ones that dot the list today?

From a business perspective, hardware companies need to have a bold and accurate vision of the future, constantly taking innovative strides to beat competitors to that vision. If they can only make incremental improvements, the reality is that their competitors can enter the fold to create cheaper, similar hardware.

Samsung, which finished 2018 as the world’s sixth most valued brand, is a good example of this in practice. The company has had the top-selling smartphone for every year between 2012-2018 – an impressive feat in staying on top of consumer trends and technology.

Despite Samsung’s success, it remains stuck behind four other tech brands on the list – all companies almost exclusively focused on platforms: Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Apple.

Why are Platforms so Dominant?

Constant innovation is a good barrier to entry if you can keep doing it – but the platforms have an even more bulletproof strategy: being everywhere at once.

Facebook uses the powerful network effect from billions of people as a moat, and then it buys up-and-comers (Instagram, WhatsApp) to cover even more ground. As a result, competing with Facebook is a nightmare – even if you could theoretically acquire new users at $1 per user at a ridiculous scale, it would require a marketing investment of billions of dollars to make inroads on the company’s audience.

Microsoft owns various platforms (Windows, Xbox, LinkedIn, Azure, etc.) that help insulate from competition, while Google’s strategy is to be everywhere you need to search, even if it’s in your living room.

Because platforms have massive scale and are ubiquitous with consumers, it gives them the ultimate pricing power. In turn, at least so far, they have been able to establish the world’s most powerful consumer brands.

Visualizing The World’s Most Valuable Bank Brands

When most people think about brands, they often picture iconic consumer marks like Coca-Cola or Apple.

But in the realm of financial services, the importance of having a strong consumer brand is also rapidly growing. After all, with hundreds of new fintech entrants positioning themselves to be the “banks” of the future, it seems that brand awareness may be one of the major competitive advantages that incumbent banks can use to protect themselves.

Which financial institutions have the strongest brands, and which brands are the most valuable?

Valuable Bank Brands in 2019

Today’s chart looks at the world’s most valuable bank brands, according to a recent report from Brand Finance.

It should be noted that brand value in this context is a measure of the “value of the trade mark and associated marketing IP within the branded business”. In other words, it’s measuring the value of intangible marketing assets, and not the overall worth of a business itself.

Here are the top bank brands by value in 2019:

For the third year in a row, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) takes the top spot, with a brand value of $79.8 billion.

Wells Fargo is the top U.S. bank by brand value, coming in 5th place – however, the bank actually fell two spots from last year’s ranking while simultaneously losing 9% of its brand value. This is not surprising in light of the recent publicity challenges faced by the bank.

The Ascent of Chinese Banks

It’s also interesting to note that Chinese banks have taken all four of the top spots on the list, with ICBC, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, and Bank of China having a combined brand value of over $250 billion.

Here’s a look at the ascent of Chinese banks over time:

In contrast, in the entire span of 2009-2014, there were zero Chinese banks that cracked the top five.

The Strongest Bank Brands

Finally, here is a look at the strongest bank brands.

It’s worth noting that in contrast to value, these are banks that have executed on their branding, marketing, and sales strategies to have brands that ultimately create a competitive advantage for their business.

Brand Finance measures brand strength by looking at a balanced scorecard of metrics evaluating marketing investment, stakeholder equity, and business performance.

For more insights, don’t forget to check out Brand Finance’s report.