Official: Apple, IBM are world's most valuable brands Technology companies dominate a listing of the hottest worldwide brands with Apple and IBM taking the top slots, though how much of a benefit this is for resellers might be open to question. Millward Brown's BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2012 survey saw four tech and three comms providers in the top 10. Apple was …
McDonald's makes the cheap crap that is served to billions and is despised by anyone with taste.
It's a very apt comparison and one that many of us have been making for decades already.
Although I find it hilarious that IBM is considered a valuable brand.
Strangely, while many people abhor the produce of the golden arches, it can unarguably be said to be of higher quality than almost all other types of fast food.
Thinking about the kinds of burgers you get from independent take-aways; food from greasy spoons, pizza houses, chip shops et cetera makes me feel nauseous.
At least McD's is not swimming in grease and prepared by a smelly foreigner in a filthy kitchen.
...although I'm a veggie and have never eaten a McD I find it relatively easy to defend them.
If you've got wedges of cash you can eat at some fancy restaurant. If you've got less then McD provides an opportunity to eat out in a place with good hygiene and fresh cooking via fast turnover of stock. I also understand they have fairly, err, efficient, use of resources. Fair enough. I'm with the Chinese on this: you kill it, you eat it all.
As for using the Linux icon, since that's also about efficient use of resources, I'd have expected a different opinion.
Anonymous because I don't want to publicly own up to being a veggie.
The brand name of the world's leading maker of boring and tedius transportation appliances (sitting in warm porridge)is more valuable than Mercedes Benz 3-pointed star? Fail. Complete and utter fail.
A few years ago, a (better) analysis pegged the 3-pointed star as the world's most valuable branding exerecise. One must allow the rise of Apple et al.
Spoken like someone who's never driven a Mercedes ... or had his Toyota recalled for brake issues.
Just sayin'.
Seriously, we're in the market for a new car and someone suggested a certified pre-owned BMW. I can honestly say a one-year-old CPO 328i that I drove, at $30,000, is a better car than any other new $30,000 car I've ever driven.
"Surely the following brands are more valuable than Toyota :-
Bentley,
Range Rover,
Aston Martin
Ferrari
Lamborghini"
Problem there is that even if everyone wants one, the market of people who can actually afford to buy one is much smaller than the market size of people that can afford a Toyota.
Remember they're talking about the value of the BRAND, not the quality or price of the product or the company. In other words, to what extent will people base their next purchase decision on the name of the label rather than on the product itself.
You can read that two ways. You could argue that means that there are a whole load of stupid fanbois who will buy whatever rubbish Apple produces at whatever price, just because it says Apple and they were fooled by the marketing. Alternatively, that there are a lot of extremely happy customers who were so satisfied with their previous product they're sure they'll buy Apple again next time. Either way, it's an enviable position to be in.
As an overpriced but still accessible consumer product, Apple is in a very good position to exploit hype. Other similarly over hyped brands aren't. Some out of work Spaniard can manage to buy and hold onto an iPhone. You can't say the same for a Ferrari. No matter how much "love" they get, their revenue is capped by the population size of suitably wealthy customers.
The same goes for Mercedes or BMW but to a lesser to degree. Apple computing products similarly fall into that category.
That's why the iThing part of Apple's business does so well while their original core business still continues to lag behind the rest of the industry.
Plus phones and media players are much closer to commodity items.
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