Microsoft replaces Coca-Cola as world's leading brand

Media&Marketing Emmet OliverFor a company that has not released a fresh version of its main product, Windows, for five years, Microsoft's brand image does not appear to be suffering much damage.

The global market research firm Millward Brown has just published its influential list of the world's 100 most powerful brands and the Seattle-based firm tops the list. Millward estimates Microsoft's brand to be worth $62 billion (€50.4 billion), which puts it significantly ahead of the number two brand General Electric, whose brand is valued at $55 billion. Coca-Cola, which has been at number one in previous years, has dropped to third place.

A report in Britain last week said Coca-Cola was among a group of companies which had not done enough to lower fat or salt levels in their products.

The survey is the first to combine consumer research with public financial data. The survey also examined the momentum of different brands and their future prospects.

The growing economic power of China was also evident, with China Mobile moving into fourth place with a brand valued at $32.6 billion.

What is amazing about this company, which is under central government control, is that it was only established six years ago. Despite its central government links, its shares can be traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Despite the raft of legal actions the tobacco industry has faced, Marlboro is ranked the fifth most powerful brand in the world. The brand is owned by giant US tobacco company Philip Morris. While the company faces strong opposition in the US, it has attempted to tinker with its corporate image and is running a campaign to help parents stop their children smoking.

The remaining five most powerful brands were Wal Mart, Google, IBM, Citibank and Toyota. While US firms dominate the list, Millward Brown pointed out that Chinese firms were gaining ground, with Lenovo, a computer manufacturer, not far from the top 10. Retail brands are also becoming very powerful, with the likes of Tesco, eBay and Amazon in the top 100. Millward said: "This proves that shopping is a branded experience."

When it comes to luxury brands, European names were to the fore. The top ranked luxury brands were Louis Vuitton at number 24 and Mercedes at 28. The survey said these brands were generously supported by the affluent classes in Europe, but also by what it described as "super affluent" in developing countries.

Unfortunately Irish companies were not able to produce a brand to penetrate the top 100. Other international surveys have described the likes of Guinness and Baileys as major global brands, but the latest survey shows food and drinks companies towards the bottom half the list.

For example, the classic American motorcycle brand, Harley Davidson, was almost as powerful as Pepsi.

Munster scores

Dublin advertising agency AFA O'Meara reports this week that Munster last Saturday managed to grab a larger television audience in the Heineken Cup than Leinster.

This may be explained by the later starting time for the Munster match against Perpignan, but it was still an impressive audience performance by Declan Kidney's team. At its peak the Munster game got an audience of 584,000, whereas the peak audience for Leinster against Toulouse was a more modest 352,000. Either way the semi-final between the two teams should produce one of the largest sporting audiences of the year for RTÉ. This is definitely going to be the case without the Ryder Cup in September, which is only airing live on Sky Sports.

Ads online

Online advertising now makes up 8 per cent of all spending in the UK, according to a survey this week from the Internet Advertising Bureau.

In 2005 companies spent €2 billion with online sites, which was a 7.8 per cent share of the overall market. There was a 65 per cent increase in online spending in 2005.

Advertisers in Ireland are becoming more supportive of online advertising, but there is still some resistance to the idea because of low broadband penetration. This week Saor Communications, which advises a number of major clients on where to spend their money, said: "The Irish online market is also growing at a fast rate and attracting more adspend than ever, but with only about 270,000 broadband users versus the UK's 10 million broadband users, the Irish online adspend market share is some years behind the UK in growing into an 8 per cent medium."

eoliver@irish-times.ie