Study: Coca-Cola, Microsoft hottest global brands

Coca-Cola and Microsoft are the two top global brands, according to an annual ranking by BusinessWeek and branding company Interbrand. Coca-Cola has kept the No. 1 spot and Microsoft has stayed No. 2 for the last seven years.

IBM, GE and Nokia made it into the top 5. Google is climbing and has reached the 20th position; the search giant has raised its brand value 44 percent compared with last year and 45 percent since 2005, breaking into the top 20 in just two years.

The ranking, called Best Global Brands 2007, compiles a list of 100 companies worldwide, a fair amount of them from the U.S.

But how's the value of the brand calculated? The ranking is based on the assumption of how much money the brand will generate in the future. Key issues are branding and marketing strategies as well as financial forecasting.

The big losers this year are Ford, which dropped 19 percent compared with 2006; Gap with 15 percent; and Kodak with 12 percent.

These are the top 10 companies from the list and their brand value in 2007:

1. Coca-Cola, $65 million
2. Microsoft, $59 million
3. IBM, $57 million
4. General Electric, $52 million
5. Nokia, $34 million
6. Toyota, $32 million
7. Intel, $31 million
8. McDonald's, $29 million
9. Disney, $29 million
10. Mercedes-Benz, $24 million

[CentrOS]

Apple not in the top 10?

I do find that more than a little peculiar. Apple has higher brand
recognition than at least 2 of the above.

[aka_tripleB]

No they don't

All Apple really has that people talk about are iPods, which is a very small market segment. On the other hand Coca-Cola has been around since the late 19th century. That means that they have been around since everyone who is alive was born. That means that everyone could have been weaned on the stuff right from the mother's teat.

Microsoft on the other hand, actually pushed their name to the top. It has servers, OSs, mobile OSs, MP3 players, other software, game consoles, and even hardware that bare its name.

The reason Apple hasn't made the list is because it doesn't have a large enough distribution chain to sell its products. Unless you want an iPod, you'll pretty much have to buy from its website because there aren't too many Apple stores around. The closest one to me is 80 miles away; which takes 1.5 hours to get to on a light traffic day.