Brandchannel’s Reader Choice Awards:
We’re All Media Brands Now

Michael Hedges February 3, 2005

If you thought all brands would be media brands in the future, brace yourself. We’re there!
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Interbrand’s brandchannel dot com released its annual Reader’s Choice Awards for the most influential brands of 2004. In most of the world it’s dominated by media brands or those brands with very high media value.

Survey results are divided by geography, Europe and Africa figure together. The top three most influential brands within a couple of hours of Greenwich Mean Time: retailers IKEA, Virgin and H & M, all very media minded. In the UK and parts of Asia Virgin is a radio brand. It’s an airline. It’s a music company.

Number four is Nokia, those nice mobile phone people from Finland. Though Nokia slid from its top European ranking in 2001 and 2002 there is no doubt that mobile technologies mean mobile media. Orange ranked 11th and Vodaphone 13th.

No clearer evidence of globalized media brands ascendancy is the arrival of Al-Jazeera, number five in Europe/Africa as well as globally.

Brandchannel editor Robin Rusch noted “Osama bin laden uses it as his station of choice.” The Arabic television network, nine years since its birth, beats 80 year old BBC, which ranked 9th. The BBC is up from 11th place in 2003.

Agence France Presse (AFP) reported Tuesday (February 1st) that the emir of Qater will privatize Al-Jazeera within a few months. The network plans an English language network later this year as well as a childrens channel.

Globally – brandchannel dot com readers represented 75 countries – Apple is on top, followed by Google, switching places from last year. The innovation of both – from iPod to GoogleAds – have changed common ideas about media brands. About 2000 managers and academics participated in the survey, each voting only once.

CNN, number 12 in 2001, did not make the global 2004 list. The BBC kept its number 27th rank. MTV is 30th.

In North America Apple and Google lead, with Pixar number 5. Internet leaders Amazon dot com, eBay and moveon dot org are 6th, 9th and 12th. Blackberry is 16th and TiVo 17th.

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Interbrand Survey: Europe in Fashion - July 24, 2005

Europe’s fashion and luxury brands moved fastest up Interbrands 2005 survey of brand value. Louis Vuitton soared to 18th from 44th place. Spanish fashion retailer Zara debuted at 77th, Bulgari debuted at 94th, Gucci moved up to 49th to 59th and Cartier to 89th from 91st. BMW moved to 16th from 17th and Mercedes Benz remained at 11th.

Google debuted at 38th, valued at €7 billion. EBay moved from 60th to 55th, Yahoo from 61st to 58th. MTV fell one spot to 48th. Amazon.com dropped to 68th from 66th. Reuters fell to 74th from 71st.

Coca-Cola still leads the list, with a brand value of €56 billion. Of the top ten brands, only Nokia moved up, from 8th to 6th, while Disney (7th) and McDonalds (8th) each fell one position.

Interbrand’s Survey of the Best Global Brands was released July 21st, published by BusinessWeek.