For the past four years, the top place in the Brandz 100 list was held by Google, but this time they have been toppled over. Apple’s iPhone has been doing very well and is indeed very popular but this change in valuation is largely being attributed to the iPad.

Apple has increased its valuation by $137 billion or 859% since 2006, when the Brandz Top 100 list was first introduced. Since last year, Apple has increased its valuation by $153 billion or 84%.

Google has fallen to spot number 2 and has also lost 2% in terms of valuation, in spite of the fact that their Android OS is doing quite well.

Popular social network Facebook has also entered the top 100 list for the first time this year and is placed at number 35 with a valuation of $19.1 billion.

Amazon has shown the greatest rise in position from number 46 last year to 14 this year, with a valuation of $37.6 billion.

Technology based companies held 6 out of the top 10 spots in the list. These were Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, AT&T and China Mobile.

Among the losers in this year’s ranking were Nokia, which has fallen 38 places and is now ranked 81, and Nintendo, which has fallen 47 places and now ranks 79 in the list.

The Brandz index uses various parameters to judge the top 100 brands in the market. These include brand equity surveys and financial data from analyst reports. The future growth potential of the brand as well as the bond it has with users is taken into consideration.

A study has been conducted in this connection across 1,000 businesses in 17 countries by the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS) at Purdue University in Indiana on behalf of the software security firm, McAfee.

The study found that in the last one year, 7 out of 10 businesses incurred large expenses due to security incidents related to the use of Web 2.0 technologies, and the average cost of such incidents was around $2 million.

The businesses that took part in the study considered the possibility of brand damage or the loss or leakage of important data through the accidental downloading of malware or spyware.

81% of the surveyed businesses restrict the use of at least one of the tools, such as social media, microblogging or web mail, while 13% block all such services. Such restrictive policies could be a direct result of such incidents coupled with the previously published statistics about the amount of time wasted by employees on social networking sites.

On the other hand, a report titled ‘Web2.0: A Complex Balancing Act’ by McAfee found that 40% of companies admit that the use of Web2.0 tools caused increased productivity and 75% of the companies they surveyed had increased the use of these technologies in the hope of improving revenue generation. These two seemingly conflicting reports present quite a conundrum for employers.

Mike Sentonas, McAfee’s Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Asia Pacific says, “In order for businesses to reap the benefits of Web2.0 they must understand their security options and stay informed, because the security landscape has really changed.”

In reality, the best option for companies is probably to encourage the use of social media for business purposes while implementing a strong security protocol and systems to check that malware does not get inadvertently downloaded.

AT&T Mobility was at the top of the list with $8.08 million spent in the month of June. All of the top 10 companies have spent over $2 million on AdWords advertising that month.

It is understandable that AT&T went all out in that month as they had to promote the iPhone 4, for which they had the sole supplier rights in the U.S.

Some of the other companies in the top 10 list are Apollo Group, Expedia, Amazon, and eBay. While these companies have consistently spent large amounts on Google AdWords, the presence of BP in that list, with a spend of almost $3.6 million was quite surprising, as in the past they have spent only as little as $57,000 a month on Google AdWords.

The obvious reason for the sudden change in BP’s advertising policy was the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which was big news at that time. BP obviously had to do all they could to protect their reputation, and buying several related keywords on Google AdWords was one of the best ways to do that.

While the document gives a clear indication of how important Google has become for businesses of all sizes, the big surprise here is that the top 10 spenders put together account for only about 5% of Google’s U.S. revenue in the month of June. Only 47 advertisers were found to have spent over $1 million in June, 71 spent between $500,000 and $1 million and 357 spent between $100,000 and $500,000.

The thousands of smaller advertisers, who use pay per click marketing on Google, still contribute to the lion’s share of Google’s $23 billion annual global revenue. While this is great news for small businesses, it also means that when more big brands start spending significant portions of their total marketing budgets on Google, the smaller businesses might just get squeezed out.

The company is paying for sponsored placement in search results for several phrases such as ‘oil spill’, ‘Gulf oil spill’ and their own brand name on Google, Bing and Yahoo!

BP are paying enough per click to secure the top spot on the search engines for these search terms. It has been estimated that they could be spending over $10,000 per day to retain the top position on all the search engines.

Sponsored link from BP on Google SERP

BP’s explanation for this move is that they would like to guide people to the “correct information” about the incident and the efforts they are putting in to clear the mess, as well as to help people to file claims where applicable.

The description placed alongside the ad reads, “Learn more about how BP is helping.”

Spokesperson for BP, Toby Odone says, “We have bought search terms on search engines like Google to make it easier for people to find out more about our efforts in the Gulf and make it easier for people to find key links to information on filing claims, reporting oil on the beach and signing up to volunteer.”

While the money spent on these searches may be money well spent to protect their brand reputation, it would not help if it is used to just pull wool over the eyes of the public. If the public feels that BP are not doing enough to correct the damage they have done, and are just trying to send out a ‘positive message’ they could damage their reputation even further.

Users on Facebook and Twitter are already sending out messages calling the spill an act of ‘accidental terrorism’ and are asking for the boycott of BP.

Common sense would probably indicate the same without the need for research. If a consumer elects to receive a brand’s messaging on their Facebook news stream or Twitter feed, that consumer is already likely to be a champion of the brand. It is just natural that such a consumer would then be more likely to buy that brand’s products.

Assuming that social media prompts consumers to buy would be a leap of faith not justified by this research. The only role it plays, according to this piece of research, is to prompt consumers who already like a brand to buy more of its products.

iModerate Research Technologies and consumer market research firm, Chadwick Martin Bailey, conducted the survey on the effect social media has on brand followers in February 2010 across more than 1,500 adult respondents in the U.S.A.

The study reveals that 60% of Facebook fans and 79% of Twitter followers are more likely to recommend brands that they follow or become fans of. Similarly, they are more likely to buy products of those brands.

51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers said they were more likely to buy from the brands that they follow.

Vice President at Chadwick Martin Bailey, Josh Mendelsohn says, “Companies not actively engaged are missing a huge opportunity and are saying something to consumers – intentionally or unintentionally – about how willing they are to engage on consumers’ terms.”

Consumers of both sexes and various age groups who participated in the study also felt that brands that are not involved on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are either unaware of the opportunity they are missing or are not very interested in interacting with their consumers.

Considering that Facebook has over 400 million active users and 50 million tweets are posted on Twitter every day, the brands that are not on these networks are certainly missing the opportunity to reach a large audience.

According to eConsultancy, most consumers follow a brand to get discounts, but about 2% of them said they follow the brand to show support for it.

Brand advertisers want to know whether they are getting their money’s worth, in terms of quality and quantity, where digital media is concerned.

It is a well established fact that the more time a user spends seeing an ad, the more he or she is likely to be influenced by it and if this user is actively engaged with that ad the perception of the brand concerned is usually found to be higher.

The time spent on an ad, multiplied by the rate at which it is actively engaged with is known as the dwell score. The dwell score thus provides a tangible source to measure the effectiveness of a brand and its online ad campaign.

Dwell Score = Time spent on ad x Rate of engagement

Research from other sources such as comScore corroborate the fact that a high dwell score indicates a higher number of branded search queries, more visits to the brand website and more engaged visitors.

Data also shows that click-through-rates are not very effective in measuring brand performance as consumers are likely to spend more meaningful time on an ad then to actually click on it. To better understand this subject, new systems are required to measure the time spent and engagement with an ad.

According to the findings of the MIA Project, 96% of marketers surveyed felt that these digital ad measurements and calculations should be clear and transparent, but only 29% felt that they were so at present. 96% of them also felt that there should be consistency in the terms of measurement, but again, only 23% of them were satisfied with the present state of affairs.

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The above mentioned statement is only applicable to those online marketers who use the names or photographs of celebrities, to endorse their products without having taken the consent of the celebrities concerned.

While this has been a very common practice for a long time now, talk show host Oprah Winfrey has decided not to take this practise lying down anymore.

Mashable reports that Oprah, along with Dr. Mehmet Oz and The Illinois Attorney General’s office, has filed a lawsuit against over 50 marketers for using her name to promote their products without her consent.

The lawsuit filed by Attorney General Lisa Madigan, charges 3 suppliers and a local affiliate marketer of acai berry products, for misleading consumers, by offering free trials and then charging them through their credit cards, even before the trial product reaches them. The scammers also makes it very difficult to cancel the order or to stop payment.

The suppliers named in a press release by the Illinois Attorney General are Advanced Wellness Research, its successor Netalab and its former President Nicholas Molina, Crush LLC and its owner TMP Nevada Inc and Amirouche and Norton LLC and Larby Amirouche.

Reuters reports that a lawsuit has also been filed in New York for copyright and trademark infringement against about 50 companies for misusing names, pictures, voices or trademarks and leading consumers to believe that their products have been tested and recommended by Oprah and Dr. Oz, which is not the case at all.

Following the filing of the lawsuit, an online affiliate ad network Azoogle, sent an email to its members, warning them about the possible consequences of using celebrity names without permission.

These lawsuits might have the desired effect, in the short run, but unscrupulous marketers will always find ways to exploit the law unless more celebrities decide to take action against such marketers and bring more of them to justice for brand abuse.

Social media platform Wetpaint and digital consulting firm Altimeter Group conducted a study of the world’s top 100 brands, with regards to their interaction with consumers through the social media sites and their level of revenue generation.

The results, which were revealed recently, show that companies with the highest level of presence on the social media registered an impressive 18% growth in revenue in the last year, while companies with poor or no presence on social media sites registered a drop of 6% revenue in the same time period.

A lot more than just social media presence contributed to the above rises and falls in revenue, but social media awareness definitely did play a role in the overall fortunes of the companies involved.

The top engaged brands were as follows:

1. Starbucks
2. Dell
3. EBay
4. Google
5. Microsoft
6. Thomson Reuters
7. Nike
8. Amazon
9. SAP
10. Intel and Yahoo! (tied)

The only brands that added links in their email marketing messages to social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace were Pepsi, Sony, The Gap and Hewlett Packard.

Links to Facebook and Twitter in email marketing campaigns have increased drastically over the last couple of years.

In the same time period, the ratio of number of emails linking to Facebook and to Twitter has reversed.

In 2007, 215 campaigns were linked to Twitter and 729 campaigns were linked to Facebook.

In 2008 Twitter had 2,540 campaigns and Facebook had 12,650 campaigns.

However in 2009 Twitter has received 41,399 campaigns until June, while Facebook has received 41,052 campaigns during the same period.

Twitter had been trailing behind Facebook in January and February 2009. In March the two companies were running neck and neck. However since April, Twitter seems to have established a clear lead over Facebook.

The results of a study conducted by WorkPlace Media, reveals that brands that are advertising on social sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter are not yet receiving the kind of response they would like.

The survey, about the impact of social network sites on brands, was conducted in May 2009 among 753 Americans with access to the internet at work.

The findings reveal that 55% of office internet users have a social networking account. However only 435 of them access the account while at work, and 78% spend less than 30 minutes per day on the site, while 13% spend 30 minutes, 5% spend 1 hour and only 4% remain open all day long.

Unfortunately for the brands, 96% of respondents reported that the absence of a brand on the social media did not change their opinion about it, while only 12% said the presence of a brand helps to change their mind about it. 11% said they do not follow any brands on the social sites.

33% said they had received a recommendation for a brand on the social networks, but only 25% had recommended a brand on the social media and just18% acted on such a recommendation.

Most people still prefer the traditional word-of-mouth recommendation from friends or colleagues. 21% in person, and 12% on the phone, while only 4% each, use public and private social networking sites for recommendations.

89% of respondents had a Facebook account, 40% MySpace, 31% LinkedIn and 18% Twitter.

89% of respondents use the network only to stay in touch with friends and family, and 18% take product recommendations on social sites, of which 53% look up entertainment, 50% dining out, 23% groceries, 21% beauty care and cosmetics, 20% apparel and 15% each for electronics and pet care.

According to Terry Goins, Executive Vice President, WorkPlace Media, “it’s clear that the social media is just that, it’s social”.

Google continues to top the list, growing in value from $86 billion last year to $100 billion in 2009, which represents a growth of 16%. Google is followed by rival, Microsoft, which climbed up one position from last year with a current value of $76.2 billion – also up 8% over last year.

Yahoo! has fallen from number 62 last year to number 81 this year, and its value has also fallen, from $11.5 billion to $7.9 billion.

Other technology brands in the top 10 are IBM at number 4 with a value of $66.6 billion, Apple is at number 6 and is valued at $63.1 billion. China Mobile is placed at number 7, with a value of $61.2 billion, and Vodafone, which is a new entrant in the top 10 list, is at number 9, with a value of $53.7 billion.

Mobile operators have seen brand value rise, for the most part. O2 and AT&T have especially benefited from the launch of the iPhone, both seeing double-digit rises in brand value. The top 10 mobile operators by brand value are:

Among the non-technology-based companies, General Electric (GE) has taken quite a beating, as the brand’s value has fallen from the number two position last year, to number 8 this year.

Ten of the companies in the top 25 list are from the technology sector. Further down the list is Amazon at number 26, AT&T at number 28, Cisco at number 30 and eBay at number 54.

Quite surprisingly, the value of some of the brands has gone up substantially this year, in spite of the effects of the worldwide recession, which only goes to show that good companies can do well even in tough times.

In the UK, brand value for some of the brands in the list has fallen. Marks & Spencers, in particular, has seen a 48% fall in brand value over the past year.

The 10 most valuable brands in the UK are as follows:

The results, reported by the BBC, show that Internet search giant, Google, has occupied the top slot for the first time, to become the most popular brand in the country.

Last year Google was ranked at third place, but this year it has beaten Microsoft and Mercedes Benz, which are now at number two and three respectively.

Surprisingly, none of the well known supermarkets managed to reach even the top 100 list. Stephen Cheliotis, Chairman of the Superbrands Council says, “Lifestyle brands, particularly those in the technology sector, have considerably more sway with the public than everyday staples such as supermarkets, which now seem further than ever from the affections of the British people.”

He also said that, “The results are also a further sign that Google is continuing its dominance in the U.K. It is clear that Google is the brand that people value at work and in their personal lives”

Brandz Top 100 identifies the most powerful brands in the world. The ranking is based on results from a survey conducted across 1,00,000 people and financial data from the ranked corporations.

Google’s total brand value has increased 30% and is now estimated to be worth around $86 billion. Peter Walshe, global account director at Millward Brown says, “Google’s rank has been driven by fantastic financial performance and equity value.”

Microsoft did not fare badly either, ranking third, with a 29% increase in brand value. Yahoo!, however, fared very badly, being one of only four brands in the technology sector to lose brand value. The Yahoo! brand fell 13% to make it worth just $11.5 billion.

The top five brands, Google, General Electric, Microsoft, Coca-cola and China Mobile (in that order), are therefore the same as last year, and each company has increased its estimated value by 15% to 39% in the year.

Apple is a new entrant in the top 10 list at number 7. Its value is $55.2 billion up a whopping 123% from last year, when it was at number 16. The jump in Apple’s brand value has been largely owing to the success of its new products iTouch and iPhone.

Mobile Operator, Vodafone, was the top ranking British brand, up 12 places from last year, with a 75% increase in value to $36.9 billion. It was followed by Tesco, HSBC, Marks & Spencer and Barclays in the ranking of the top UK brands.

Overall, the mobile sector showed the strongest growth in brand value, followed by technology, personal care, fast food and luxury. Porsche topped the ranking of brands with the highest brand momentum, while Louis Vuitton had the highest brand contribution.

Download Brandz Top 100 2008 Report

The study compared brand associations developed when an unbranded query delivered different search results pages (SERPs) as follows:

1. The brand name does not appear on the SERP
2. The brand name appears only in the side ad listing
3. The brand name appears only in the top organic listing
4. The brand name appears only in the top ad listing
5. The brand name appears in the top ad and top organic listing.

The study also compared how brand affinity changed when a branded query delivered different SERPs with the brand name appearing:

1. Only in the top organic listing
2. In the top ad & top organic listing

Lastly, an eye tracking study was carried out on 100 subjects in a lab environment.

The results of all these experiments showed that there is a 16 percent increase in brand association and an 8 percent increase in purchase consideration when the brand is displayed in the top ad & top organic listing.

Conversely, consumers are found to be 16 percent less likely to consider purchasing a brand that does not appear on the search results page.

Even for branded queries, presence in the search results has a definite influence. There is a 7 percent increase in purchase intent for brands that advertise on keywords containing the brand name. Visitors with established brand affinity were found to spend 25% less time on the top ad and jump to the organic listing 73% faster than those without a prior affinity.

The eye tracking study showed that brand fixation occurs in the URL & title of listing, implying that placement of keywords in the title, URL and close to the start of the description Meta Tag will probably bear more weight in the Google algorithm.

The good news is that a separate survey of over 500 male consumers aged 18-35 years carried out over a period of 4 weeks found that brand awareness can be increased over 30 per cent through banner ads on mobile web portals.

Nielsen’s global survey found that the vast majority of consumers trusted recommendations from other consumers most all. This was followed by trust in newspaper advertising, consumer opinions posted online, brand websites and television. Text ads on mobile phones were trusted by only 18 per cent of users, ranking it lowest, below online banner ads and search engine ads.

To What Extent Consumers Trust Forms of Advertising
Source: The Nielsen Company

Press Release for Nielsen’s Global Ad Survey

Millward Brown and Aerodeon conducted the brand awareness survey in August. Conducted using mobile phone survey technology, the research measured how much ad awareness and brand consideration was generated for a global male grooming brand by a banner ad creative, produced by Aerodeon, on a UK mobile web portal.

Aerodeon’s research showed that branded ad awareness increased by more than 30 percent. Future purchase consideration also increased by 23 percent among users of the brand and 11% among non users.

While this is a mixed bag of news, one thing is clear: Mobile advertising is currently enjoying a honeymoon period where users are responding to ads at a much higher rate than they do on other media (compare 30% to 7% for regular Internet ads). For advertisers, this means that now might be the best time to start building mobile sites and advertising mobile content.