March 16, 2009
The winners of Kelley Blue Book’s 2009 Brand Image awards have been announced:
Best Value Brand: Toyota- Coolest Brand: BMW
- Most Family Friendly Brand: Toyota
- Most Rugged Truck Brand: Ford
- Best Performance Brand: BMW
- Best Comfort Brand: Cadillac
- Best Exterior Design Brand — Luxury: BMW
- Best Exterior Design Brand — Non-Luxury: Nissan
- Best Interior Design Brand: Cadillac
- Best Prestige Brand: Mercedes-Benz
Jack R. Nerad, executive editorial director for Kelley Blue Book and kbb.com had this to say, as reported by the Detroit Free Press:
"The winners of this year’s Brand Image Awards exemplify automotive brands that are on the right track, making a great impression with consumers not just on a specific model level, but across the entire brand lineup."
Tags: Toyota, BMW, Ford, Cadillac, Nissan, Mercedes Benz, Kelley Blue Book, brand image, automotive, auto industry, automotive industry
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Posted by almcclymont
December 27, 2007
The top ten global brands are worth over $400 billion in conjunction, according to Interbrand and their most recent yearly report.
These are the top ten brands with their estimated worth:
Coca-Cola, $63B- Microsoft, $58B
- IBM, $57B
- General Electric (GE), $51B
- Nokia, $33B
- Toyota, $32B
- Intel, $31B
- McDonald’s, $29.4B
- Disney, $29.2B
- Mercedes Benz, $23B
Tags: Coca Cola, Microsoft, IBM, General Electric, GE, Nokia, Toyota, Intel, McDonald’s, Disney, Mercedes Benz, Interbrand, branding, marketing, best brands
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Posted by almcclymont
December 20, 2007
Interbrand ranks global brands every year… moving on down the chart, hare are brands #41 through 50 from their most recent yearly report for 2007:
41. Ford
42. Philips
43. Siemens
44. Nintendo
45. Harley-Davidson
46. Gucci
47. AIG
48.
eBay
49. Axa
50. Accenture
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Tags: branding, brands, marketing, top brands, Ford, Philips, Siemens, Nintendo, Harley-Davidson, Gucci, AIG, eBay, Axa, Accenture
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Posted by almcclymont
December 3, 2007
Interbrand ranks global brands every year… these are brands #31 through 40 from their most recent yearly report for 2007:
31. Dell
32. JPMorgan
33. Apple
34. SAP
35. Goldman Sachs
36. Canon
37. Morgan Stanley
38. Ikea
39. UBS
40. Kellogg’s
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Tags: branding, brands, marketing, top brands, Interbrand, Dell, JPMorgan, Apple, SAP, Goldman Sachs, Canon, Morgan Stanley, Ikea, UBS, Kellogg’s
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Posted by almcclymont
November 29, 2007
Continuing with Interbrand’s most recent yearly report on the most valuable brands in the world for 2007, here are the brands ranked 21 through 30:
21. Samsung
22. Merrill Lynch
23. HSBC
24. Nescafe
25. Sony
26. Pepsi
27. Oracle
28. UPS
29. Nike
30. Budweiser
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Tags: branding, brands, marketing, top brands, Interbrand, Samsung, Merrill Lynch, HSBC, Nescafe, Sony, Pepsi, Oracle, UPS, Nike, Budweiser
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Posted by almcclymont
November 22, 2007
According to Interbrand and their most recent yearly report on the most valuable brands in the world, these are brands eleven through twenty:
11. Citi
12. Hewlett-Packard
13. BMW
14. Marlboro
15. American Express
16. Gillette
17. Louis Vitton
18. Cisco
19. Honda
20. Google
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Tags: branding, brands, marketing, top brands, Citi, Hewlett-Packard, BMW, Marlboro, American Express, Gilette, Louis Vitton, Cisco, Honda, Google, Interbrand
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Posted by almcclymont
November 19, 2007
These are the top ten global brands for 2007 according to Interbrand in their most recent yearly report:
- Coca-Cola
- Microsoft
- IBM
- General Electric (GE)
- Nokia
- Toyota
- Intel
- McDonald’s
- Disney
- Mercedes Benz
What Interbrand does is measure brands as business assets. Their criteria for consideration are:
- There must be substantial publicly available financial data
- The brand must have at least one-third of revenues outside of its country-of-origin
- The brand must be a market-facing brand
- The Economic Value Added (EVA) must be positive
- The brand must not have a purely b2b single audience with no wider public profile and awareness
These criteria exclude brands such as Mars, which is privately held, or Wal-Mart, which is not sufficiently global (it does business in some international markets but not under the Wal-Mart brand).
The number one brand in the world, Coca-Cola, is valued at at $65 billion dollars.
Tags: Coca Cola, Microsoft, IBM, General Electric, GE, Nokia, Toyota, Intel, McDonald’s, Disney, Mercedes Benz, Interbrand, branding, marketing, best brands
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Posted by almcclymont
September 28, 2007
Are Apple and Volkswagen working together to create the iCar?
(Actually the name is just rumored as is all talk currently going on about this).
All that is really known is that a "Volkswagen spokesperson told German magazine Capital that an iCar may be on the way. Steve Jobs and VW Chairman Martin Winterkorn got together in California a few days ago to plan an intensive co-operation with the building of vehicles."
Rumors and more rumors say the iCar will sport Apple’s AirPort networking system plus a touch-screen iMac.
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Posted by almcclymont
September 10, 2007
I am a recent Mac convert, at least at home, and a big fan of the company and their products.
Recently, Apple made many loyal customers unhappy when they cut the price of their cool new iPhone by $200, from $599 to $399.
This is actually a widely known and accepted practice in technology: as soon as a high-demand tech item goes on sale, there is a price premium to be paid. Early adopters know this and buy willingly. Some time later, prices drop.
The thing is, the iPhone’s price drop was pretty steep, and happened only a few weeks after the product was launched.
Users were not happy and wrote to Apple in droves. The flip side: Apple’s success is based on happy, or rather passionate, customers.
What did Steve Jobs do?
He wrote an open letter to original iPhone customers explaining why Apple did what they did, the long-term effects they are looking for, and apologizing for not taking care of early iPhone customers as well as they could have. And he also gave all early iPhone buyers a $100 credit.
In other words:
- Acknowledge the mistake. Even if, as in this case, it wasn’t really an error, just an unfortunate situation).
- Apologize immediately. Explain what happened.
- If possible, make it up to the customer. I feel this is icing on the cake, as customers will be pleasantly surprised with steps one and two. But if you can also give them something extra, go for it.
If Apple can do this for hundreds of thousands of its customers, it should be pretty easy for small and medium businesses to adopt such a proactive attitude when something goes wrong with their clients. In fact, very easy, as most screw-ups happen just one customer at a time.
Tags: customer satisfaction, branding, Apple, iPhone, Steve Jobs, best practices
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Posted by almcclymont
September 1, 2007
Listerine made a great marketing move with its mouthwash many years ago. The tagline went something like this: It’s so foul tasting that you can be sure it’s killing all those germs.
But this is much different, and I guess falls into what we could call "anti-branding"?
Starting next year, British law mandates that all cigarette packs and other tobacco products must feature graphic photographs showing the detrimental effects of smoking.
The idea is to shock more people into quitting.
What photos will be used?
In another canny move to increase awareness, the British Department of Health is letting the public decide through an online campaign. Visitors to the DH’s website voted for the 15 most disturbing photos out of a possible 42.
(You can see them here, I stopped after the first one, shown above.)
British Health Secretary Alan Johnson says the pictures are necessary because smokers have grown numb to current written warnings on packages.
"We’ve had the messages on cigarette packets since 2003, warning that smoking kills, for instance, but the evidence is that’s very effective, but it’s diminishing in its effect.
"Using graphic images to get the same message across — that smoking kills, that people who smoke will die younger".
To give credit where credit is due, the precursors in this are Belgium, Canada, India, Australia and Singapore.
Tags: smoking, health, cigarettes, tobacco
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Posted by almcclymont
