Brand Finance’s Top 250 Brands

Brand Finance has revealed its Top 250 Brands by value in a move that takes on both Interbrand and Millward Brown’s Top 100 lists.

The company uses different methodology from its competitors and has awarded brands a ‘rating’ which can go up to AAA+.

You can see the top ten brands here, their values and ratings below…

Mitchell and Webb take a bite out of Apple

It’s always interesting when comedians suddenly turn to the corporate side and start doing ads for big companies in character. Following Green Wing’s Julian Rhind-Tutt and Stephen Mangan’s turn for Barclaycard last year, it appears Apple has signed up the brilliant Peep Show’s Mitchell and Webb for a new promotion.

You can see them here. Do you think they are funny or is it just us?

Play…Doh!

Hitting upon a winning idea, and brand, is manna from heaven for marketers. Consumers can’t seem to get enough of your product, and it practically advertises itself. But then, they want more. Shareholders, the board, consumers – all want another slice of your perfectly branded action. But innovation is hard. What if you can’t come up with another killer idea?

And then a flash of inspiration. We don’t need a new brand, we need something new with the old brand on it. Brand extension = Success guaranteed.

Unless that is, you have an enormously successful modelling clay product, and decide to launch a perfume as part of the range as Play-Doh did. It was, in fact, nominated the most inappropriate brand extension with 61% of the vote in a survey by brand consultancy, TippingSprung.

The company’s survey does note that a number of brand extensions have been successful, mainly by dint of staying true to the original values. American Red Cross radios for example, was named best overall extension. Budweiser BBQ sauce went down well as the best extension of a food brand, and the link up between fashion and bridalwear designer, Vera Wang, and the Halekulani Hotel topped the hotel category.

Perfume, which is the de facto brand extension for today’s celebrity, didn’t perform too well as a whole. Consumers turned their noses up at scents from Daytona 500 and rock band KISS.

The 2006 survey was carried out in collaboration with Brandweek.

Coke’s Birdman sees through AGF’s Lens

Every week, AdForum sends us a lovely bunch of its favourite ads from round the world. Anyone who signs in free can see the site’s top five choices. This week, the ads come from as far afield as Ireland, Argentina, Paris and the US.

Our favourites are these:

Coca-Cola’s Birdman spot

AGF insurance’s ‘Lens’ spot

Do you agree with our choices? Or are there any favourite ads of your own that you’d like to see up here?

Keeping up with the Jones

The World Economic Forum 2007, now commonly just called ‘Davos’ after its Swiss location, is always a good headline grabber. It is certainly always assured coverage in all the best media: the BBC website has an almost hourly blog, The Guardian notes the day’s major announcements and so on.

It’s just a shame that most of those headlines are so hopelessly out of date. One particular BBC Blog entry struck us dumb: “Davos is also a great place to launch things. Yesterday the UNHCR with Nike and Microsoft launched ninemillion.org – a new campaign to provide education and sport to the worlds nine million refugee children.”

Don’t get us wrong, ninemillion.org is as worthy a charity to take centre stage as any. It’s just that it’s been doing its good works for nearly seven months now, having been launched on 20 June 2006. That fact reported by Nike’s own vice president of corporate responsibility, Hannah Jones, in September 2006’s edition of – you guessed it – Brand Strategy.

Subscribers can view Hannah Jones’ article here

MIDEM 2007: virtually speaking

MIDEM 2007 looked at one particular subject close to Brand Strategy’s heart: virtual worlds. The CEO of girls’ site Stardoll discussed how he is monetarising his world through selling virtual clothes to go on virtual dolls. The site is unusual in the online space as it has 95% female use in the 10-17 age cateogory – a particularly tricky demographic for websites to attract in general.

Stardoll lets girls design their own online dolls or use a celebrity template, which they can then dress in virtual fashion. The site is monetised by offering various outfits and accessories for sale, which are then kept in the doll’s virtual bedroom. The dolls can visit or chat to one another, give gifts or appear in the online world’s virtual magazine.

This was very interesting as it brought up several key points:

- people will pay for content like virtual clothes if it feels ‘real’ enough to them even though they will never own it outside a computer;

- the same principles of how groups interact with each other work online as well as offline. Girls like to chat to their friends, give gifts and dress up – if they aren’t doing it in reality, they’ll do it virtually;

- brands can get involved with these virtual worlds incredibly easily. Why aren’t all teen clothing brands available on Stardoll already? TopShop could be launching clothes collections in the game at the same time as in real life.

Any thoughts? Let us know.

MTV and The Body Shop spray to change attitudes to HIV and AIDS

The Body Shop and MTV have announced a global philanthropic partnership – ‘Spray To Change Attitudes’ – this morning which aims to help prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS among young people. The global campaign advert will be shown on MTV channels and online around the world, aiming to reach more than 1.4bn people, and a special-edition fragrance called Rougeberry will be available in The Body Shop stores in 44 countries. It hopes to raise at least £500,000 through donating £4.50p of the perfume’s sales to the Staying Alive Foundation.

Dame Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop and Bill Roedy, vice chairman of MTV Networks revealed that for every five million people newly infected with HIV, more than 50% were under the age of 25. Roddick, speaking to Brand Strategy, said: “Our audience is the same; our demographics are the same. We’re aware of the need to get the message out to the under-25s.”

“The idea of the synchronicity of coming together on an idea but working with another organisation, in this case, another big business is quite unique. I think think it’s time for reflection; big business doesn’t usually sit down and say “Let’s reflect on how we can work together on the issues” so this is pretty good. We’re looking at complete global coverage. This is a real lesson for other businesses about finding strategic alliances and other purposes.”

Roedy went onto say that businesses needed to be global citizens and “step up to the plate”. He said that businesses need to realise that AIDS and HIV are their problems – it is potential customers and employees that are being affected and lost to the epidemic.

He said that TV companies should contribute their airways, ad agencies should provide creative output and consumer products businesses should donate their distribution networks to the cause. Roddick agreed that demonstrating leadership on social issues would help companies to build stronger “emotional connections” with their customers, which is a valuable business advantage.

Roddick was sceptical that this partnership was going to be a move into broadcast advertising for The Body Shop brand on a larger scale. She did, however, suggest that the partnership would show “how effortless it is” for companies like The Body Shop’s owner L’Oreal to get involved with socially responsibly schemes.

The Staying Alive foundation does grassroots work around the world on HIV and AIDS-related issues. This is its largest fundraising collaboration to date, although it has already given 41 grants to 21 countries to help with HIV and AIDS issues.

MIDEM 2007: The UGC debate rages on

At MIDEM 2007 in Cannes, there was an interesting debate this morning featuring Michael Downing (MD), founder of GoFish, a user-generated content site and Mike Salmi (MS) at MTV Networks. They discussed what user-generated content meant for the future of music and brands. It has relevancy for all companies wondering how to use and monetise UGC content – not just those involved in music.

Some highlights included (paraphrased, of course!):

Who in the music business is best placed to take advantage of UGC? 

MD: At GoFish, we have UGC and also deals with major record companies to distribute their videos. In last two years, growth around this sector has been much more aggressive than even social networking. 120m videos a month. It is a tremendous opposrtunity with tangible monetary and business options. Whether you’re a label or new artist, there is an opportunity for everyone in the food chain. 

MS: I think a lot has been made abot Myspace and new artists. But I think new business opportunities around UGC and a good way to get involved is through videos.  

MD: There are 10 billion video streams a month in the UGC video category. Think will double by Aug or Sept this year. Let’s pretend we could track how many of those have some kind of commercial music involved and if each has a 0.005 cent charge put on the track use, you’re looking at huge growth rate. We’re not there yet and can’t track and audit what music is used. It’s a matter of who will move first to do this.

TurboNick Live? MTV goes for UGC

At MIDEM 2007, Mika Salmi from MTV Networks was discussing how the company has created TurboNick Live, which will be a user-generated content kids show. Is this just a case of a big brand jumping on the UGC agenda before the craze is over or is it really a sign that even the largest companies realise that to reach a socially-networked generation of kids, they have to incorporate this into their product portfolio? Let us know your views.

MIDEM 2007: consumer research

This morning at MIDEM 2007 in Cannes, Paul Brindley at Music Ally presented some interesting consumer research carried out yesterday with a group of young people, looking at their reactions to various technologies, brands and products available at the moment. It is intriguing stuff for companies to hear…

Here is a general gist of the discussion – naturally, it is paraphrased for ease of reading:

How do you feel about digital music as opposed to CDs?

“A cd package has all the picures; you don’t have that with digital music.”

“Digital music you download and listen for a while then throw away; a real CD is more valuable; you keep it and it is yours for a long time.”

“I only buy CDs when I really like the artist – then I put it on my iPod.”

“I buy CDs not very often – only when I know I like lots of the songs.”

“I prefer to give CD as a present rather than digital music. It becomes more meaningful if you want to give a message beside the songs. I use mainly digital myself.”

CONCLUSIONS: Digital music is still seen as more disposable and less ‘precious’ than music in CD format. But it is also more convenient. Brands thinking about associating themselves with music would do well to bear this in mind.