The latest global brand analysis and ranking by Millward Brown Optimor provides insight into the impact of marketing and sales on brands. The Chicago-based market research company, part of WPP, a global marketing service conglomerate, recently released its 2nd annual BRANDZ Marketing Ranking report (click here for the full PDF report).

The report describes how the rankings were generated: Intangible earnings (the portion of a company's earnings related to a brand) + brand contribution (a refining individual brand contribution) + an earnings multiple (an estimation of future value of the brand) = the "Brand Value."

From the rankings, the research firm noted a number of findings, such as the fact that technology sector brands experienced the 5th highest growth of all industries in terms of its collective brands.

And the winner is ... The Google! 

So how did technology brands fare? According to the results Google was the top global -- not just technology -- brand. Other interesting findings from the rankings include:

• Google was No. 1, driven by a 77% increase in its brand value. Online portal and service competitor Yahoo! saw its brand value drop 6%, which resulted in a No. 42 showing.
  
  
• While Microsoft may be losing the recent PR war to Apple, it soundly beats its smaller rival in the rankings. Microsoft came in at No. 3 as the technology company with the second highest brand value, while Apple only manged to secure 16th place. For Apple fans, the good news is that Microsoft's brand value was down 11%, while Apple's was up 55%. In fact, Google and Apple were the only two tech companies listed in the top 10 brands with the highest momentum list.
  
  
• Nokia checked in at 12, ahead of Apple but not growing as fast in value (19%). It will be interesting to see the impact of Apple's forthcoming iPhone (see this previous note) on next year's rankings of these two soon-to-be mobile phone competitors.
  
  
• IBM made it to No. 9, finishing ahead of No. 15 HP and far ahead of No. 37 Dell. Of those three, though, only HP was gaining in brand value (27% for HP, -7% for IBM, and -24% for Dell).
  
  
• Despite its PS3 pricing and delay issues and disastrous CD DRM missteps, Sony's brand was up 22%. However, the bad news is that the brand only ranked at No. 55, one step behind Canon and more than ten from No. 44 Samsung.
  

Comparisons to Interbrand/BusinessWeek 2006 results

The 2007 BRANDZ rankings are notably different than the more well-known global brand rankings by the team of brand consultant Interbrnad and BusinessWeek. Those two organizations' rankings emerged last year in late July (click here for the report), so it will be interesting to compare this year's results -- available this summer -- with the BRANDZ rankings noted above.

In the Interbrand/BusinessWeek "Best Global Brands" 2006 report -- the 6th year of the effort -- the rankings were determined based upon a different methodology than used by Millward Brown Optimor. Acccording to last year's release, here's how the Interbrand/BusinessWeek rankings are determined:

Brand value is calculated as the net present value of the earnings the brand is expected to generate and secure in the future for the time frame from July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006. To be considered the brands must have a minimum brand value of US$2.7 billion, achieve about one third of their earnings outside of their home country, have publicly available marketing and financial data, and have a wider public profile beyond their direct customer base.

According to this methodology, in 2006 Coca-Cola was No. 1 in terms of brand value, while Google was at the 24th position. Microsoft came in at No. 2, while iPod developer Apple only made it to the No. 39 spot. IBM also fared better at No. 3, while Intel followed at 5.

Rankings = Entertainment and perhaps some new business ... for the ranking companies 

What do these results mean? Is Google really No. 1 or No. 24? For companies with high rankings -- particularly rankings higher than competitors -- the results will increase marketing staff morale, but they most likely won't lead to increased sales.

Much as vendors cherry pick the results from press articles and analyst firm reports, tech vendors will selectively promote the brand rankings results that favor them. For the rankings' providers, the resulting heated debate will undoubtedly increase their name recognition and perhaps lead to more business. For the rest of the tech industry and observers, the rankings are simply a fun read and an excellent source of debating material.

By: Tom Rhinelander, NRG Analyst