Google Overtakes Apple As the World's Most Valuable Brand

mrspoonsi (2955715) writes in with news that global market research agency Millward Brown has proclaimed Google as the world's most valuable brand. "US search engine Google has overtaken rival technology titan Apple as the world's top brand in terms of value, global market research agency Millward Brown said Wednesday. Google's brand value shot up 40 percent in a year to $158.84 billion (115 billion euros), Millward Brown said in its 2014 100 Top BrandZ report. 'Google has been extremely innovative this year with Google Glass, investments in artificial intelligence and a range of partnerships,' said Benoit Tranzer, the head of Millward Brown France. Apple, which dominated the top position for three straight years, saw its brand value fall by 20 percent to $147.88 billion."

Comments

Re:Well, well, well

[StripedCow]

Open source friendly?
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets...

Brand value?

[Sockatume]

"Brand value is calculated on the basis of the firms' financial performance and their standing among consumers."

Their methodology is completely proprietary and unpublished so I'm not sure how much faith I have in the ranking.

http://www.millwardbrown.com/B...

Misleading?

[Futurepower(R)]

Something is wrong, somewhere, IMO. This Slashdot story is apparently about a PR release by Millward Brown, which is owned by Kantar Group, which is owned by WPP. Notice that the WPP web site is badly coded. It doesn't adjust for font size choices in browser configuration. The web site has, to my eyes, an ugly, cheap look.

See this Slashdot story: Google Foresees Ads On Your Refrigerator, Thermostat, and Glasses. Look at the comments. I'm not the only person to think something has become crazy at Google. Here are more: Why I'm Sending Back Google Glass and Apple, Google Agree To Settle Lawsuit Alleging Hiring Conspiracy.

Maybe this Slashdot story is about a PR release paid for by Google? Or Millward Brown is trying to advertise itself? Apparently "brand value" doesn't say much that is logical about how a company is managed, but just means that you should respect a company because a company is getting a lot of attention.

Re:Misleading?

[Sockatume]

It's definitely Millward Brown trying to advertise itself, or rather its "Brand Value" metric, rather than Google or anyone else. The financial metrics are all public information, but an analysis firm needs something proprietary to sell; all the better if it's ostensibly quantitative.

Re:Misleading?

[Xest]

Whilst I'm not defending the methodology, it does seem a bit arbitrary (but then, so are most rankings used by fanboys on both sides comparing Apple vs. Google so no change there), I don't really understand much of the point of the rest of your post:

"Notice that the WPP web site is badly coded. It doesn't adjust for font size choices in browser configuration. The web site has, to my eyes, an ugly, cheap look. "

What has this got to do with anything? It sounds like you're implying WPP is some fly by night company with a site that's been set up quickly and in a rush. You realise WPP is one of, if not the single biggest PR agency in the world right? I'm not defending it in terms of ethics, because some of the names of the firms it owns are known for the wrong reasons here (e.g. Burson-Marsteller who were running Microsoft's massive shill campaign here). But what WPP absolutely isn't is some irrelevant little upstart, it's an absolutely massive company.

"Look at the comments. I'm not the only person to think something has become crazy at Google."

What are we meant to be looking for? I can only see the usual stuff - a few off-topic comments dotted amongst the usual suspects either defending or attacking Google. What has changed here?

"Maybe this Slashdot story is about a PR release paid for by Google? Or Millward Brown is trying to advertise itself?"

Of course it is, but this isn't a new thing, in fact, the only new thing is that Google is now doing it. This is a game that Microsoft, Oracle, Apple et. al. have been playing for a very long time, it looks like Google has had enough of trying to "do no evil" in this respect and has decided to go down the same lame old route.

A few years back we were getting almost weekly news stories like "iPhone survives fall from aeroplane", "iPhone used by boy to save himself in well", "iPhone used to diagnose cancer" or whatever else. Many of these stories could never be corroborated, there was no evidence of the people involved in question, no pictures, just a story that frankly was almost certainly made up in most cases. If you tried to dig deeper and find out names, pictures, locations of these events you just hit a dead end. Similarly there was a massive Microsoft first post FUD campaign here, and we also saw a massive amount of Oracle shills during the original Java trial. We've seen the same from the likes of Sony and so forth even too.

It's not new. The amusing thing is this is precisely why WPP is so successful - it makes a fortune running FUD campaigns against a target for a client with one subsidiary then gets another to sell a counter campaign to the target of the original FUD campaign. It's good money if you can get it - running an arms race where you're selling to both sides of the battle with thinly veiled pretences of independence of subsidiaries of the parent company, but it's not ethical, and it's not new.