The strength of the iPad has pushed Apple ahead of Google for the first time as the most valuable brand in the world, according to Millward Brown’s 2011 BrandZ study (http://www.millwardbrown.com/BrandZ/Default.aspx) of the most-valuable global brands, notes “Advertising Age” (http://macte.ch/EFU1W). Apple ended a four-year run by Google at the top of the brand ranking.
In fact, this is the first time that Apple has topped the list since BrandZ began compiling its annual ranking of the world’s most valuable brands. The company topped the list with an 84% surge from 2010 that put its value at more than US$153 billion.
According to Millward Brown, the subsidiary of the WPP advertising firm that compiles the list, Apple’s burnished its image with consumers through a combination of low-profile strategies and high-profile marketing tactics. The firm says: “Apple continued quietly developing a cloud and loudly discovered an empty space in the computing category that it filled with a new device — the iPad. In the last quarter of 2010, Apple sold more iPads than Mac computers. The iPad, which quickly met competition from other tablet makers like Samsung, helped Apple pass Dell and HP in total portable computer sales. An Apple cloud would further strengthen the brand as a trinity of platform, content and device.”
Peter Walshe, global brands director of Millward Brown, told “Reuters” (http://macte.ch/tGZtR) that Apple’s meticulous attention to detail, along with an increasing presence of its gadgets in corporate environments, have allowed it to behave differently from other consumer-electronics makers. “Apple is breaking the rules in terms of its pricing model,” he said “It’s doing what luxury brands do, where the higher price the brand is, the more it seems to underpin and reinforce the desire.”
— Dennis Sellers