Top One Hundred Brands In The World – Google Takes Top Ranks

I just saw this news item from BizReport: Google Ranked Top Brand In The World.
Here’s some bytes of the news item:
“Market research firm Millward Brown released their annual Brandz Top 100 Most Powerful Brands rankings earlier this week. Google, who was down in 7th place in last year’s ranking, came out on top with a brand value of $66.4 billion. That’s a 77 percent rise in brand value putting the relative newcomer ahead of long-established brands.
Microsoft, on the other hand, lost 11 percent of its brand value since last year’s rankings, falling to third place with a brand value of $55 billion, behind General Electric Co. who rose to second place with $62 billion.”
The top ten from Millward Brown’s Brandz looks like this:
1. Google -$66.4 billion
2. General Electric -$61.9 billion
3. Microsoft -$55 billion
4. Coca-Cola -$44.1 billion
5. China Mobile -$41.2 billion
6. Marlboro -$39.2 billion
7. Wal-Mart -$36.9 billion
8. Citigroup -$33.7 billion
9. IBM -$33.6 billion
10. Toyota Motor -$33.4 billion
This is very impressive if you simply consider that Google was created around 1998. That’s not even ten years. Brands like General Electric, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, IBM and countless others have lived in the hearts and minds of consumers for generations.
This is obviously not just an indication of trending. If that were the case, Starbucks would certainly be within the top ten rankings.
The full twenty-eight-page PDF report is available for you to peruse over here: Brandz – Top 100 Most Powerful Brands 2007.
I’m tracking thoughts on the process that Millward Brown used on how they calculate the brand values (page four of the PDF). What do you make of their evaluation?
Also, is anyone else more than a little surprised that Google vaulted to the top so fast? There’s no doubt how big of a brand Google is in my personal zeitgeist, but I’m staggered by this report. Don’t get me wrong – this is well-deserved… it’s just a little overwhelming.