Interbrand Ranking of Brands 2008

The yearly interbrand brand ranking is some thing which many marketers look forward to. I had covered the ranking last year too, link to my post on 2007 ranking , link

and a related post on ranking of brands in India , link.

The 2008 ranking is out, and as usual the list has its share of surprises....

But no suprises for the top slot coke, which has been there for the last eight year, the Olympic sponsorship is supposed to have helped...

The surprise came at number 2 and 3, IBM overtaking Microsoft ... and the entry of Google into the top 10 for the first time.........

I have put up the top 10 list and the list of biggest gainers and losers in this year's ranking for quick reference and people wanting more can follow the links given below

business week has a full section on the story, link

and of course on the interbrand site one can find a lot of stuff from the methodology to the previous year rankings, Link

Brand ranking in India

Worldwide we have many ranking mechanism for brand, the more popularly accepted ones include

Interbrand Best Global Brands Survey , which would include a detailed report on how the ranking is done,

BrandZ Ranking 2008, is also a good resource

But in India we still don't have a well accepted raking which we can follow, only one which has been doing this on a regular basis is the Brand Equity Most Trusted Brand Ranking , link

and this survey has a fair bit of industry acceptance too.....

Interbrand Best Global Brands Report 2007

The 2007 Interbrand and Business Week ranking of the best global brands by value have been released. The full report is accessible at their website

The top four brands have retained their positions

1. Coca Cola valued at $ 65.32 Billion

2. Microsoft at $58.70 Billion

3. IBM at $57.09 Billion

4. GE at $51.56 Billion

5. Nokia, has climbed one position $ 33.69 Billion

6. Toyota has climbed one position and valued at $ 32.07 Billion

7. Intel a drop of two positions $ 30.95 Billion

8. McDonald's a jump of one postion $ 29.39 Billion

9. Disney drop by one $ 29.21 Billion

10.Mercedes $ 23.56 Billion

In the top ten 7 are from US, One from Finland, one from Japan and one from Germany. In the top ten the maximum gain has been 15% fro Toyota and next is Nokia with a 12% gain. In the top hundred the Internet search giant Google (ranked 20) emerged as the biggest gainer with a rise of over $5 billion in its brand value. From an Indian perspective we don't have any brands in the top 100, and on the other hand very few of the top hundred brands have a substantial presence or should I say leadership position in the country, including the top in the list: Coca Cola which has had a struggle to establish itself against Pepsi in the country and despite all it's efforts it couldn’t Kill Thumps up which is still a very strong brand in India. The only brand in the top ten which also a very strong brand in India would be Nokia . Thus this ranking would make sense for consumers in US and other countries but in India .......We do have our own ranking which is done by Economic Times and Business standard, in the next blog I will try and share some of their finds of Brands in the country....

Wal-Mart Back at the top of Fortune 500 List

The latest Fortune 500 List places Wal-Mart as the number one company based on the previous years revenues. The company had been displaced from the top of the list last year by Exxon Mobil. Revenues of the company is at 351 Billion Dollars.The company had been on the top of the list from 2002-2005 and now back in 2007. Five Indian companies have improved their rankings in the list, IOC, Reliance Industries, BPCL, HPCL and ONGC.SBI which made a debut last year has improved it's ranking by three positions.The news item also adds that china has added four new companies to the list taking the total to 24.

Wal-Mart has tied-up with the Bharti Group and is planning an entry into the Indian market. Is it something that Indian consumers should look forward to or will it create too big a threat to the way Indian retail has been operating till now????