The brand pecking order

 

Photo by Sid Balachandran on Unsplash

If I worked for a brand, especially a stonking big global brand, I think I’d be a little choosy about whose brand ranking system I chose to hang my hat on. Of course, there are almost as many brand ranking systems as there are brands these days.

In an idle moment, I had a look at the brand hit parade of a couple of the big players in the brand ranking game. The Big Daddy (Interbrand) and relative new kid on the block Kantar (BrandZ). 

Now, both of these have a black box to calculate brand value, but from what I can tell, these are on the same principle - factor in financial value/analysis, plus the brand strength/equity and role/contribution of the brand. And Bob’s your uncle, or something.

The Top 20s look like this:

OK, at the top of the table, we’ve got AMAG, or GAMA - not “MAGA” this year (to the relief of many).

And there are one or two brand positions where the two rankers are more-or-less in agreement - Instagram, Oracle, McDonald’s, YouTube.

But then there are some huge discrepancies. Coca-Cola is No. 7 Interbrand, No. 20 Kantar. For Facebook and Nvidia, the pattern is reversed - (Facebook 19/6, Nvidia 15/5). 

And whole categories - Luxury Brands (Louis Vuitton 12 on Interbrand, 32 on Kantar), consumer electronics (Samsung 5 on Interbrand, 61 on Kantar). 

Finally, look at cars. Toyota is 6 on Interbrand, 84 on Kantar. Mercedes-Benz and BMW are 10 and 14 respectively on Interbrand but don’t even make the Top 100 in Kantar.

Perhaps there are some methodological things I’ve missed, such as eligibility criteria - quite possible.

But I wonder how much is due to the two rankers’ beliefs as to what constitutes a strong brand? Is it coincidence that Interbrand - who’ve been in this game since the last century - have more substantial legacy-type brands in the Top 20? 

Whatever the answer, it just goes to show there are many ways to value a brand.

I wonder if anyone has done a ranking of the brand rankers? 

 

Extrawurst finds its (AI) voice

 

I’m trying to keep up, honestly I am. But sometimes I just have to rely on younger (more switched on?) friends and colleagues to point me in the direction of the AI gizmos developed in the last 5 minutes.

I do very vaguely remember being very excited when I first saw Powerpoint back at Saatchis in the last century. You may find that laughable, but it’s true. Having said that, I wasn’t overkeen to get down and grapple with Powerpoint myself - that took another decade and necessity (self-employment).

But this time, when one of my strategy network chaps started waxing lyrical about Google Notebook LM , I thought I’d better get my hands dirty.

Mr Trump thinks they’re eating cats and dogs in Springfield, but the fact is that Google Notebook LM has eaten Extrawurst. I’m not sure how many posts it ingested before it could take no more, but I hope you’ll forgive me the self-indulgence of showing off the results.

There’s this for starters:

The provided text consists of a series of blog posts written by Sue Imgrund, who is a British strategic planner living in Germany. The posts explore a range of topics, from the circular economy to the German school system, using a blend of personal anecdotes and observations about German society. Imgrund frequently draws on her experiences as a mother in Germany, and often references trends and cultural phenomena within the German context. The posts offer a unique perspective on German culture and societal changes, providing insights into consumer behaviour, marketing trends, and the evolution of specific brands and products.

And, for the main course, something that really stopped me in my tracks. A sort of podcast thing. Some of the segways are a bit questionable, but, blimey ...

And for dessert? Can’t fit any more in for now, but do come back later ...

Seek - and WHAT will you find?

 

Something has flickered at the edge of my attention for the last few weeks when I’ve been on Amazon. Up to today, my brain had noted “oh, there’s what looks like an AI summary of reviews” and I hadn’t bothered to read further.

But today I had a look. The feature is headed “customers say” and is “AI-generated from the text of customer reviews.” I started with a music stand I’d bought a couple of years back for £14.99. Here’s what the AI rehashed from thousands of reviews:

Customers say

Customers appreciate the value, ease of folding, and ease of assembly of the product. They mention it works well, is easy to put up, and adjust for all heights. Customers also like its lightweight design. However, some customers have mixed opinions on its sturdiness.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

My pernickety side would probably take issue with some of this, but it’s useful enough for a relatively low-price, functional purchase.

But how would the AI fare with something more literary? Amazon did start out in books after all, whatever their plans for world domination.

I took a book I read last year which, to fit the topic, features a robot as the main protagonist: Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro:

Customers say

Customers find the prose wonderful, flawless, and incredibly readable. They also find the story interesting and engaging. Opinions are mixed on the character development, with some finding them well-drawn and unforgettable, while others say they're thin and not satisfactorily described. Reviews are mixed also on the boring plot. Occupants have mixed feelings about the emotional content, with those who find it sad and heartbreaking, while those who say it's unconvincing.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews 

Who are those “occupants”? Something to do with inter-planetary craft? This bland and badly-composed summary would hardly help me in deciding this was a book I’d love - or hate.

For contrast, my review of the novel is here. I even get an IKEA reference in!

Now, I know Amazon will be working to iron out bugs, and I may well eat my words when I look back in a couple of years to re-read this. But, to me, it’s yet more evidence of the tendency to lump ratings and reviews together, to go for the lowest common denominator, to smoothify and blandify everything, to dock the long tail and snip off all that’s individual, quirky, odd-but-fascinating, the bits that don’t fit ...

And this is what’s happening in the area of Search. I listened in to a Gartner seminar yesterday on the Future of Search. After some initial and well-publicised hiccoughs, Google now provide AI overviews, (along with a resource carousel of links) to typical search queries. The feature is available in the US and some other markets. The example shown by Gartner was a simple “electric vs gas dryer”:

   

Helpful enough, I guess - and Gartner gave plenty of marketing tips to make sure your brand ends up in the overview or the carousel. 

The functional advantages of electric and gas dryers are one thing, though. Whether to read Klara and the Sun or Brave New World next is quite another - as is any question or decision that involves human intellect, taste, culture, emotion, past experience, hopes, dreams and anything else full of nuance and impossible to measure. 

I’m all for AI providing information that could be helpful when choosing what to buy.  I look forward to Google (and others) rolling out this kind of overview as an option. But, in the race to be first, I hope they don’t cut down the inspire and discover side of search in favour of definitive answers. 

Cory Doctorow’s vision of the AI Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, and the metaphor of feeding cows a slurry made from the diseased brains of other cows is grim, but not entirely implausible. 

My most helpful brand of 2022

 

With all the trend reports and round-ups of 2022 I’ve been reading, I gave pause for thought. What has been my favourite brand of the last year? I was tempted to go for something that had done brilliant brand communications, but realised pretty quickly that I’d probably only seen those communications by reading Campaign and the rest of the trade press.

Rather, it’s a brand that entered my life just over a year ago, and one that, in the words of the “meaningful brands” questionnaire, I’d be genuinely upset if it disappeared. 

It’s DeepL. In November 2021, I was searching around for a decent online translator that would do a better job than my memories of Bing, or Google or Facebook. I’m still not sure whether DeepL found me or whether I found DeepL, but does that matter?

It’s a quiet, unassuming, unobtrusive brand - in fact, I’m not sure whether it officially thinks of itself of a brand or not. But it has a logo and a look, so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. What is certainly true is that I have developed an extreme loyalty to DeepL over the last few months and it has become ingrained in my working life, particularly when I’m working with predominantly German clients, as has been the case recently.

DeepL is just one of many AI-based brands that I’ll be getting used to using in my work. The next one could be ChatGPT - but that’s a story for another day. 

A heart-warming idea

How often do you see an idea that deftly combines human emotion, the latest technology and doing good for society that's also absolutely on-brand? Not so often.

The idea "Memory Lane" from the energy-provider Stockholm Exergi and their agency Accenture Interactive does all that. The claim (or maybe it's the purpose) of the brand is "Together we make Stockholm warmer" - which can of course be interpreted in both physical and emotional terms.

The technology is reversed-engineered AI voice, so that rather than you asking your voice assistant for information, it will ask you questions - about your early memories, your first love - and record the conversation, eventually capturing this in a book. The agency placed 10 Google Home devices in the homes of people aged from 75 right up to 101-year-old Ingegerd, so that they could tell the stories of their lives.

It's a brilliant idea. Of course you can argue that this would have been perfectly possible to do ten or even thirty years ago, with dictaphones and interviewers.

But. Sometimes the barrier to actually doing something isn't the idea, or the will to do it. It's something purely practical - the expense, the time-consumption, the hassle.

This is a perfect example of how AI can work with human emotion and intelligence, accelerating and supporting it, rather than replacing it.

Aufschnitt 1: A bluffers guide to social media Sept 2006

I've discovered a bulging file of cuttings in my office amongst the clutter, and instead of chucking away the lot, I'll be sifting through them to give one or two of the best, the worst and those of particular significance eternal digital life in a new series on this blog.

Welcome to Aufschnitt! This is approximately translated as "cold cuts" and is what invariably greets you at the breakfast table of a German hotel. Which of my collected cuttings are still tasty morsels, and which are well past their sell-by date?

The first in the series is A bluffers guide to social media dated 28th September 2006, written by Antony Mayfield, who I see published a book in 2010 entitled "Me and My Web Shadow."

Why did I save this?

I wasn't really "on" any social media in 2006, although I expect I read the odd blog. I distinctly remember thinking that social media was something I ought to know about, but wasn't relishing the thought.

What is remarkable

Absolutely no mention of Facebook or Instagram whatsoever, although Google, YouTube and iTunes get name-checked. And, although social media are described as "online media", this would have meant someone sitting down, probably indoors, accessing the internet via a PC or Mac. Mobile was still very much the future.

What there's no mention of

The dark side of social media - the faking, the trolling, the bullying, the addiction. The shared characteristics mentioned - participation, openness (meaning accessibility), conversation, community and connectedness - still ring true today, but are tempered by experience.

Thirteen years later, social media has become such an integral part of life that it no longer requires a bluffers' guide.

Time Lapse Tech Disruption

This wonderful little film that has been doing the rounds is one of the best demonstrations of the pace of change that I've seen.

I've blogged here and here about this subject, comparing the top brands from one decade to the next, but seeing 18 years in just over a minute before your very eyes really brings it to life.

Maybe the most extraordinary thing is that it's only really the last 10 years that have been so completely crazy - up to 2009 or so, things are relatively stable, until Google and Apple, followed by Amazon and Facebook push their way up.

At this rate, I wouldn't even like to guess at what will happen by 2020, let alone 2029!

Her Royal Brandness

There's a rather good series of articles running at Marketing Week to celebrate the publication's 40th anniversary. I remember Marketing Week if not 40 years ago, then - ahem - certainly 30 years ago. Of the "trade publications" we received, it was my second favourite after Campaign, and certainly infinitely more readable than The Grocer, which seemed to smell vaguely of brown paper.

The articles are written by industry luminaries, and I was pleased to see my old boss from my Saatchi days elevated to branding royalty with this excellent article . Rita Clifton reflects on brands and branding over the last few decades and concludes that for success, strong brands must remain the anchor point, organising principle, heart, call it what you will, of a business.

One thing that hasn't changed in my decades of marketing and advertising is the continual dichotomy: (long-term) building the brand and (short-term) sales - today characterised as "taps, clicks and bricks." I expect our arguments in the last century weren't helped by so much mumbo-jumbo surrounding the idea of a brand. The whole idea seemed vague and airy-fairy, with the continual reference to 'brand image', as well as the contrived and frankly up-their-owm-backside ways that various practitioners conjured-up an enigmatic 'brand essence.'

Images and essences aside, it's interesting that today's most powerful brands are what we used to call single-shot or mono-brands in terms of brand architecture. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, Instagram, Pinterest and Co. don't lurk in the depths of mysterious 'brand temples' - more mumbo-jumbo - these are completely clear and upfront in their presentation.

One more reflection on the article: back in the last century, brands were dominated by what we used to call FMCG - Fast Moving Consumer Goods. Groceries in plain language.

It's ironic that the biggest changes that have impacted on branding in the last couple of decades are to do with speed and scale.

When those 20th century marketeers talked about Fast-Moving, they didn't know the half of it!

Not-so-smart addiction

Yesterday, I nearly got into a fight, or at least a slanging match. A man crossed the path of my car (yes, I was on the road), glued to his SmartPhone, not looking, oblivious. If I'd been paying as little attention to my surroundings as he was, he'd be dead or seriously injured. Yet, he seemed to think I was in the wrong.

The news (which most people probably read on their SmartPhone) is cram-full of articles about SmartPhone addiction (or is it social media addiction, or internet addiction? And does it matter?) and as long ago as 2014, the McCarthy Group's Trust and Attention Survey found that, for millennials, access to the internet is more important than access to their best friend. The word Nomophobia has been coined to mean "the fear of being without your phone."

We're not just heading for the dystopia depicted in this cartoon (inspired by The Fleischer Bros.' Bimbo's Initiation), we're active - or passive - participants already.




The Googles, Facebooks, Instagrams and YouTubes of this world are responding by a focus on "Digital Wellbeing", building take-a-break features into their services, amongst other measures. This move towards "responsible devicing" feels familiar - rather like the booze companies encouraging responsible drinking. A little bit "nanny knows best?"

The man on my local street aside, it's difficult to say how much of this is real and how much is media hype. And I wonder if just as much anxiety and mental distress comes from well-meaning and "look at my perfect world" posts as it does from hate speech and the like.

One thing is for sure: the (social) media companies dealing with the problem head-on isn't new.

One famously-long TV program title from my youth was Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go Out and Do Something Less Boring Instead? 

Is the Long Tail being docked?

Twelve years ago, a book came out which celebrated the almost unlimited choice enabled by the internet: The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson. Four years ago, I questioned the notion of choice: were we maybe living more in an age of pseudo choice, where increasingly, the internannies Google, Facebook and YouTube were knowing better what we were looking for: Did you mean ...?

I'm still irritated by Did you mean .....? as in most cases, no, I didn't. If I looked up something obscure that 99.9% of people would never search for, the chances are I did it on purpose. But in the four years since I wrote that post, the internannies have become increasingly sneaky, manipulating what we might or might not like to see behind the screens.

And, reading this excellent article from Contagious, about Voice. It's estimated that, by 2022 55% of US homes (48% of UK) will have a Smart Speaker in their home. And within two years, 30% of web-browsing will be done by voice.

Of course screens won't disappear, in the same way that bricks and mortar shops won't disappear, or TV advertising, but imagine this: if you search for an item on amazon via your device, you'll probably look through a largish number of the options presented. You can process visual information pretty rapidly.

But if you ask Alexa, how many options are you likely to want to listen to? Not many. Processing of auditory information takes far longer.

Whether you dock a dog's tail is a matter of choice and fashion, but I can't say I particularly like it.

The Cluetrain comes of age

The Cluetrain Manifesto first surfed onto the internet (as you did then) in 1999, meaning that this famous piece of business literature has now come of age. A somewhat Lutherean piece, with its 95 theses, the manifesto explored the impact of the internet on marketing and corporate communications. The idea running through is that online conversations - the new 'markets' - would make traditional marketing tools and techniques obsolete.

The manifesto has a 'Brave New World'  (in the original Shakespearian sense) feel about it, in its celebration of the human voice. This tonality is a far cry from the cute cats, grotesque gifs, saccharine  motivational quotes, Trump memes and rants that made up my Facebook stream this morning. But let me think back to 1999. It was probably four or five years since I'd first gone online, my Homepage was Yahoo! and my social media activity consisted of something called the Wedding Forum (later Baby Forum) which was a kind of forerunner of Mumsnet. The internet was not for everyone in those days - we were surfing and stumbling, certainly not being fed.

So how is the Cluetrain Manifesto looking on its 18th birthday? I had a re-read, and was inspired all over again by many of the 95 theses. Some of these are basic truths that have nothing to do with the internet, and are just as relevant today as they were in 1999, and probably 1899 too:

2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.
12. There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.
21. Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humor.
22. Getting a sense of humor does not mean putting some jokes on the corporate web site. Rather, it requires big values, a little humility, straight talk, and a genuine point of view. 
23. Companies attempting to "position" themselves need to take a position. Optimally, it should relate to something their market actually cares about.
24. Bombastic boasts—"We are positioned to become the preeminent provider of XYZ"—do not constitute a position. 
86. When we're not busy being your "target market," many of us are your people. We'd rather be talking to friends online than watching the clock. That would get your name around better than your entire million dollar website. But you tell us speaking to the market is Marketing's job. 

But I do think the authors over-emphasised the potential 'smartness' of the majority. 'Informed' covers a multitude of sins. Informed by whom? With truth or alternative facts? With what you choose to listen to? 

10. As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally. 

And more worryingly, it is the 'new' internet corporations that are taking the mantle of the 20th century bad boys, speaking in contrived voices (the chummy dude Californian tone Facebook adopts is just as contrived as the old-style corporate pomposity) , gathering data, invading privacy, controlling newsfeeds, bullying and manipulating.

15. Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman. 

Another example, perhaps, of where Huxley got it right?

So, Happy Birthday, Cluetrain Manifesto - and let's see how things look in another 18 years. I do wonder what effect bots, Alexa and AI will have on the belief in the 'human voice.'

More airport ideas

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. Hot on the heels of my last post about airports, here's another super smart piece of advertising, this time from Samsonite.

Do you remember those 'My other car is a Porsche' stickers? I'd guess the creative people who thought this one up did. Samsonite suitcases are durable - we all know that if prompted, but is it really top of mind, outside the holiday season?

The idea, created by Publicis Paris, was to offer free luggage wrapping (SAMSO'WRAP) to people with other makes of suitcase at Palma airport. This was on the condition that they were prepared to act as ambassadors for the brand, as the wrapping carried the message 'I wish I had a Samsonite.' So this would be seen by all as they rolled their nicely-wrapped bags through the airport terminal and beyond.

What I like most here is the thinking. It doesn't start with budget or media. It starts with thinking about people and where they are likely to be receptive to the message. Brands today spend a lot of time on the internet - indeed, most of today's really big brands didn't exist or couldn't have existed pre-internet (amazon, Google, airbnb, Facebook, Uber).

But I think tangible brands, especially when they are talking about something physical and experiential, such as strength and durability, need presence in the real world, in exactly the right place at the right time. This cheekily provocative idea is worth so much more than a beautifully produced film featuring hundreds of tap-dancing elephants on a suitcase - because it is connected 100% to real life.

I think it's an open and shut case.

Smiley stars or advisory council?

I've been reading a few reviews of the new book by Andrew Keen, The Internet is not the answer and I must say that I feel inclined to order and read the whole book. The big question is - do I do it over amazon?

One of the big themes of the book is that the openness of the internet has, ironically, compounded economic and cultural inequality, and has created a digital generation of masters of the universe. For all its convenience and benefits that I have enjoyed on a personal level, there is no denying that amazon has destroyed markets and exploited many of its workers.

Despite the talk about the internet facilitating our need for connectivity, it seems more and more apparent that an increase in the breadth or quantity of connections has been at the expense of a decrease in depth.

When it comes to the big internet-based brands, many of these have such pared-down staffing that it is almost impossible to connect to another human being for queries outside the normal FAQs. I recall an incident involving PayPal a couple of years ago where the only way I got my worrying query attended to (someone had hacked into my account) was by sending a letter via the postal system to Luxembourg!

Brands make a big deal of "being customer-centric" and "listening to their customers" but all too often this means one tick on a 5-point smiley star rating scale.

It was refreshing, however, to be invited to apply to be a member of the Commerzbank's Kundenbeirat the other day. Beirat is one of those strangely German words which is best translated as an "advisory council". This conjures up a vision of wise, respected people, whose opinion is sought. Not the type that are content with quickly ticking off a smiley star. The Commerzbank have been running their Customer Advisory Council since 2009. The members have a 3-year term of office and are involved in the development of banking products and services. I think it's a voluntary post, but they do get to meet the board of the bank - and to make a difference.

Better than finding out which toilet cleaner fragrance I am on Facebook, I think.

Googlephobia and other German idiosyncracies

I had a visit from my insurance rep today. A personal visit. He knocked my door, came in and sat down in one of our armchairs. I offered him a cup of coffee and he chatted me through the various changes to my policies. Although I ended up signing on a dotted line that was on one of those nifty digital gadgets, it was otherwise to all extents and purposes like a visit from the man from the Pru, fifty years later and in German.

Yesterday I tried to get into my National Savings and Investments online account. Oh dear. When I set it up I had to remember a picture, a phrase, the answer to five or six silly security questions plus concoct a password containing at-least-one-but-not-all-of-upper-case-lower-case-symbols-blah-blah. It all ended in tears (or swearing) and a wait on a customer call line.

Personal, face-to-face relationships with private customers have not died out in Germany. I am sure that a lot of it comes from the natural German resistance to doing too much online, and a general risk-aversiveness.

Sometimes the bureaucracy, rules and regulations and wariness of just doing it drive me nuts. It must be a horror to try and set up a business in Germany, especially anything that's online-based. Just look at the pickle that Uberpop got themselves into here.

But a lot of it stems from a very real concern over privacy of the individual and openness on the part of companies, which can't be a bad thing. In my encounter with the insurance man, although I invited him into my home, I have the impression that my financial and household details are just between me and that firm, not floating around for all to hack into. And that the company won't have disappeared next year.

Although Germans still seem happy to use Google's services, the company has become something of a bogeyman here, described as octopoid by some. The cynical may say that it's the old-guard Germans, stuck in the 20th century with their reliance on manufacturing who don't want the cool geeks from Silicon valley snatching their business.

But I think we can all learn a bit of cautiousness from a people that spent 60 years under state surveillance of one sort or another.

The A to Z of brands

I love dictionaries. There are my trusty companions (Concise Oxford, German-English) within easy reaching distance on my desk, as well as a few more exotic items, such as The Dictionary of Historical Slang, on my bookshelves.

So I was delighted to hear that Google have sponsored an update of Marty Neumeier's "Dictionary of Brand". Marty Neumeier, who has the wonderful title of "Director of Transformation" at the Liquid Agency, is one of those rare people who can express marketing ideas and concepts in a simple way that is never simplistic. His presentation "The Brand Gap" (between strategy and creative) has been viewed some ridiculous number of times - in the millions. His words of wisdom appear under the very knowing  title Ideas Worth Stealing.

"The Dictionary of Brand" can be stolen, too, by downloading at Slideshare. Of course, being sponsored by Google, there are a few Google-related entries, but you'd expect that these days even if it were sponsored by Apple. Marketing not being an exact science, and the pace of change in the industry being so rapid means that the definitions are not definitive, but they give you a good enough idea of what some of these strange terms mean.

Even after decades in the business, I've learned a thing or two.

Life in the old dog yet

In a post a few weeks back, I noted how Coca Cola has been toppled off Interbrand's top spot by those relative new kids on the block, Apple and Google. Despite this, the brand is showing healthy growth and could even teach a few of the new boys a thing or two about marketing.

One of my very first memories of Coke advertising was a groovy, happy-clappy film of a crowd of young things on a summer hilltop singing "I'd like to buy the world a Coke". You could run that film today - on other screens of course - because Coke is still about refreshment and happiness, all wrapped up in good-natured global togetherness. It's less about the strict consistency of corporate design manuals and more a feeling of being true to your self in your outward expression.

The "share a Coke with" named bottles this summer - and it was fascinating to see the names change as we travelled across Europe - was a stunning idea that I am sure will be talked about in years to come. And another innovation is Coke becoming a channel or medium. Instead of the usual corporate web page, Coke has launched CocaCola Journey, a digital magazine buzzing with stories from how to make a Coca Cola Cake to sending a Coke can into space, as well as plenty of the obligatory CGC.

It's a refreshing, happy online magazine, with something for everyone. The corporate facts and figures are still there, but not on the front page.

 A good example of how brands in the 21st century should behave, even if they are 127 years old.

What a difference a decade makes...

There are all manner of Brand Rankings these days - Havas have made a big noise about Meaningful Brands, while WPP are pushing Culturally Vibrant Brands. No, say Siegel & Gale, it's all about Simple Brands, while umpteen organisations have lists of Top Green or Sustainable Brands.

But we're still driven by money at the end of it all and the one list that is of interest to everyone is that from Interbrand - the Most Valuable Brands.

In the highest echelons of this list, you don't see huge changes from year to year, although I do think the toppling of Coca-Cola from the top spot is a major event. But what is fascinating is to look more long-term:

2013                                                                   2003
1. Apple                                                              1. Coca-Cola
2. Google                                                            2. Microsoft
3. Coca Cola                                                       3. IBM
4. IBM                                                                4. GE
5. Microsoft                                                        5. Intel
6. GE                                                                  6. Nokia
7. McDonald's                                                    7. Disney
8. Samsung                                                         8. McDonald's
9. Intel                                                                 9. Marlboro
10. Toyota                                                          10. Mercedes

The 2013 Top 10 really is dominated by technology, while the 2003 list actually included a tobacco brand: how quaint! And you can more-or-less divide these movers and shakers into a few categories. There are the real stars, with double-digit growth - in reverse order of achievement, Samsung, who have moved up from position 25 to position 9. Then the Number 1 Brand, Apple, which was only at position 50 in 2003. Finally, the phenomenon that is Google - this did not appear on the 2003 list, of course.

There are those stable giants, who are growing, albeit in single figures, but who have been pushed down the table to make room for the dynamic new kids. Loads of brands here, from the erstwhile king Coca-Cola, to IBM, GE, McDonald's, Microsoft and Disney, as well as Toyota and Mercedes.

The slipping giants are beginning to see erosion in their Brand Value as calculated by Interbrand - examples here are Intel and HP.

And finally, the losers, who have fallen from the dizzy heights. There's Nokia, now at position 57, and Marlboro, nowhere to be seen in the newest Top 100.

Anyone care to predict the Top Global Brands for 2023?