BusinessWeek/Interbrand Annual Ranking of the 100 Best Global Brands

BusinessWeek/Interbrand Annual Ranking of the 100 Best Global Brands

Google, Starbucks, Motorola, and eBay are among this year’s top gainers in BusinessWeek’s annual ranking of The Best Global Brands. For the sixth consecutive year, BusinessWeek has teamed up with Interbrand, a leading brand consultancy, to publish a ranking of the top 100 global brands by brand value.

The BusinessWeek/Interbrand Best Global Brands ranking measures an elusive but crucial quality. Every company wants its brand to get bigger. The hard part is balancing what the brand already is with a vision of what it would like to be. Companies that score high can count on plenty of customer loyalty as they push into risky expansion.

The 2006 ranking is brimming with hot brands that are crafting new and surprising ways to branch into entirely new product arenas. Starbucks is serving up music; Google is wading into selling ad time on the radio. Others are mining their brand’s goodwill value to dodge problems, like McDonald’s health and fitness marketing campaign and premium offerings to counter concerns about junk food.

Brand values were determined using the method Interbrand pioneered nearly 20 years ago and has since used to value more than 4,000 brands. Brand value is calculated as the net present value of the earnings that the brand is expected to generate and secure in the future for the time frame from July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006. In order to be included in the top global brands list, a brand must have a minimum brand value of $2.7 billion, achieve about one third of their earnings outside of their home country, have publicly available marketing and financial data, and have a wider public profile beyond their direct customer base.

BusinessWeek’s special report, The Best Global Brands, (August 7th issue) will be available at www.businessweek.com at 5:00 p.m. (ET) on Thursday, July 27th and on newsstands Monday, July 31st.

About BusinessWeek:

BusinessWeek is a leading global business media organization, providing unparalleled insight and analysis to a worldwide audience of business leaders. Founded in 1929 and published by the McGraw-Hill Companies, BusinessWeek magazine is the market leader, with 4.7 million readers each week in 140 countries. Local language editions include Chinese, Russian, Arabic, and Bahasa Indonesian. Launched in 1994, BusinessWeek Online is the preeminent provider of daily, essential business news, information, and services to business decision-makers. Reaching 80% of the nation’s households, BusinessWeek Weekend delivers important business, consumer and financial news to television viewers every week.

About Interbrand:

Interbrand, the leading brand consultancy and authors of the annual ranking of The Best Global Brands, published by BusinessWeek, combines the rigorous strategy and analysis of a management consulting practice with the entrepreneurial and creative spirit of branding and design. The company offers a comprehensive array of consulting services that guide clients in the creation, enhancement, maintenance and valuation of their most valuable asset — their brands. Founded in 1974, Interbrand has offices in over 30 cities in more than 20 countries around the globe and clients from among the most respected businesses. For more information about Interbrand, visit www.Interbrand.com.