BusinessWeek/Interbrand Annual Ranking of the 100 Top Global Brands.

BusinessWeek/Interbrand Annual Ranking of the 100 Top Global Brands

Click here: Things go better with Coke or Christ

More people have heard the coke melodic theme

 then the anthem of any single religion. A truly sobering

 thought. more people have seen the Coke logo 

then the symbol of any single religion! A truly scary thought. 

INTERBRAND TAKES lots of ingredients into account when ranking the world's most valuable brands. To even qualify for the list, each brand must derive about a third of its earnings outside its home country, be recognizable outside of its base of customers, and have publicly available marketing and financial data. One or more of those criteria eliminate such heavyweights as Visa, Wal-Mart, Mars, and CNN. Interbrand doesn't rank parent companies, which explains why Procter & Gamble doesn't show up. And airlines are not ranked because it's too hard to separate their brands' impact on sales from factors such as routes and schedules. BUSINESSWEEK CHOSE Interbrand's methodology because it evaluates brands much the way analysts value other assets: on the basis of how much they're likely to earn in the future. The projected profits are then discounted to a present value, taking into account the likelihood that those earnings will actually materialize. THE FIRST STEP IS figuring out what percentage of a company's revenues can be credited to a brand. (The brand may be almost the entire company, as with McDonald's Corp., or just a portion, as it is for Marlboro.) Based on reports from analysts at J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley, Interbrandprojects five years of earnings and sales for the brand. It then deducts operating costs, taxes, and a charge for the capital employed to arrive at the intangible earnings. The company strips out intangibles such as patents and management strength to assess what portion of those earnings can be attributed to the brand. FINALLY, THE BRAND'S strength is assessed to determine the risk profile of those earnings forecasts. Considerations include market leadership, stability, and global reach—or the ability to cross both geographic and cultural borders. That generates a discount rate, which is applied to brand earnings to get a net present value. BusinessWeek and Interbrand believe this figure comes closest to representing a brand's true economic worth.
2006 Rank	2005 Rank	Name	Country	2006 Value ($Mil)	2005 Value ($Mil)	Change in Value (%)	Description
1	1	Coca-Cola	U.S.	67,000	67,525	-1%	Flagging appetite for soda has cut demand for Coke, but the beverage giant has a raft of new products in the pipeline that could reverse its recent slide.
2	2	Microsoft	U.S.	56,926	59,941	-5%	Threats from Google and Apple haven't yet offset the power of its Windows and Office monopolies.
3	3	IBM	U.S.	56,201	53,376	5%	Having off-loaded its low-profit PC business to Lenovo, IBM is marketing on the strategic level to corporate leaders.
4	4	GE	U.S.	48,907	46,996	4%	The brand Edison built has extended its reach from ovens to credit cards, and the "Ecomagination" push is making GE look like a protector of the planet.
5	5	Intel	U.S.	32,319	35,588	-9%	Profits and market share weren't the only things slammed by rival AMD. Intel's brand value tumbled 9%, as it loss business from high-profile customers.
6	6	Nokia	Finland	30,131	26,452	14%	Fashionable designs and low-cost models for the developing world enabled the mobile phone maker to regain ground against competitors.
7	9	Toyota	Japan	27,941	24,837	12%	Toyota is closing in on GM to become the world's biggest automaker. A slated 10% increase in U.S. sales this year will help even more.
8	7	Disney	U.S.	27,848	26,441	5%	New CEO Robert Iger expanded the brand by buying animation hit-maker Pixar and beefing up digital distribution of TV shows through the Internet and iPods.
9	8	McDonald’s	U.S.	27,501	26,014	6%	A new healthy-living marketing campaign—and the premium-priced sandwiches and salads that came with it—have led to a fourth year of sales gains.
10	11	Mercedes-Benz	Germany	21,795	20,006	9%	The new S-Class sedan and M-Class SUV are helping repair a tarnished quality reputation. High costs and weak margins will take longer to fix.