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Their methodology is completely proprietary and unpublished so I'm not sure how much faith I have in the ranking.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

Re:Brand Value?

[Your.Master]

The name "Google" has itself been verbed in a way that has never really happened to the names Apple and Microsoft (although some Apple and Microsoft products have been verbed).

Having a powerful brand directly means you are able to sell ads for higher prices. Time magazine surely sells ad space more easily than [brand new vaguely french-woman name magazine]. The brand power is probably more important to Google than it is to Apple or Microsoft (but of course it's important to all of them).

Re:Brand Value?

[Anonymous Coward]

You still don't get it, do you? At Google, you're not the customer... You are the product. Or more to the point, your browsing habits and associated data is the product. That's why there is Google+. Imagine the windfall Google would gain if they could have the kind of active user base of Facebook joined with their business model.

Re:Brand Value?

[AmiMoJo]

Google's secret sauce is that their ads are generally unobtrusive and not annoying. Text only, and because they are targeted through search terms they are often relevant too. Other companies are finding that it is very hard to compete with a "free", high quality service. That is Google's brand value.

Re:Sic transit gloria mundi.

[Bob_Who]

20 years ago, Cisco was the world's most-valuable company.

Bombay Company stock is down, too.

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?

[clarkkent09]

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.
 
Not sure what your point is regarding the web site design. There is no way to accurately measure the brand value but these rankings are legit as far as being respected and widely reported in serious press each year.

Here is a better story than the one linked: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d8ea...

Here are the full rankings: http://www.millwardbrown.com/b...

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.

Brand Value?

[ketomax]

I can buy an iPhone, iPad, Windows OS, Microsoft Office (or it's subscription). What exactly does Google sell apart from Ads (and our data)? Google Fiber is not available worldwide. Gmail is awesome even when free. Google glass does not seem like it will be usable because of the backlash. How does Google's brand value serve them when compared to the likes of Apple & Microsoft?

Re:And...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't blame the market for supplying what society demands.

Re:And...

[justthinkit]

People demand free.
Ads pay for free.

Re:Sic transit gloria mundi.

[will_die]

Far to many battery companies around for any major profit.
Besides most energy companies are rather bad in the profit margin ranking; they are steady company but just don't have that big of profits.

Well, sort of

[wonkey_monkey]

I suppose it really depends on your definition of "value."

More skepticism

[Futurepower(R)]

From the report: Brand Value Change: Google +40%

In a huge company, what changes 40% in a year?

Re:More skepticism

[keytohwy]

Google hasn't been successful, however, in the other big "new marketing opportunity", better known as mobile (smartphone/tablet). And their ability to sell traditional desktop advertising is also staring to slow, and even decline. http://investor.google.com/ear... All this, and something like 96% of Google's revenue comes from one place; online advertising. And if that business is in peril, then things can degrade quickly. I'd say Google hasn't done much in come-to-market products from consumers. Motorola buyout - fail, Nest buyout - probably a fail, everything thinks they overpaid, etc etc.

Re:And...

[CastrTroy]

The question is, how much would you pay to access Google without ads? If they started offering a solution without ads for $2 a month would it be worth it to you? Sure, they probably don't make $2 worth of ad clicks off most people, but arranging the billing system for millions for users would make the system much more costly to run. So, now we got Google without ads. That's $2 a month. Then add Slashdot. Maybe they only charge $0.50 a month. Add on facebook, that's another $2 a month. Reddit might be $1 a month. New York Times, there's another $1. Pretty soon the number start to add up and you're easily paying $20 a month just to access websites without ads. Maybe somebody gets a whole bunch of sites together so you can pay 1 fee to access all the sites that use this service ad free. But there's sites still not using this service so you end up paying others to be ad-free.

To make any of the above work, you have to be logged in any time you are accessing the ad-free sites you are paying for, so they have a flawless way of tracking all the pages you are visiting on their site. Currently I can go to Google in Incognito mode, do some searches, and then next time I come back, I'm a completely different person, so tracking is limited. With a service you pay for, you are logged in, so they are able to accumulate a lot of information about you.

translation

[Swampash]

"We're a PR company and we'd really like to win Google's business, so we hereby announce that Google is the bestest brand in the world. According to our secret criterion. Which we can't tell you because then it wouldn't be secret."

Re:Well, well, well

[lister king of smeg]

Yes because they're open sourceing of two different operating systems and a browser and sponsoring of the summer of code event counts for nothing. Actually their algorithm is the least thing that matters. Lets say someone else had wrote it and licensed it gpl, for sake of argument, google could use it alter it and make their billions and never give back as they don't distribute.