The Top 10 Global Brands: What Can You Learn From Them?

Building a brand is vital to the success of any business, big or small. When a product is used or consumed by billions of people around the world, the feelings they associate with that brand can make it or break it.

Every year, Interbrand, a global consulting firm, compiles a list of the top brands. This year, much of the top 10 remained unchanged, dominated by companies like Coca Cola -- whose patrons consume over 1.7 billion servings daily -- along with Microsoft and Google. However, a growing global favorite, Apple, made its debut in the top 10 after a year of innovation and emotion gained the attention of the masses.

Although the list is dominated by billion-dollar corporations, many of the traits and strategies that keep these companies on top can be applied to small businesses. From a more organized product portfolio to focus on sustainability, these principles of huge corporations can help grow and sustain your small business.

Interbrand's Global CEO Jez Frampton offered us his analysis on what keeps these top 10 global brands the kings of their industry, and how those plans can apply to small businesses.

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Comments

[OliverBrayton]

10:15 AM on 01/21/2012

Where's P&G?

This company has more global brands than all of the others! Every home in America uses their first-rate products.

[skyeagle]

01:45 AM on 01/19/2012

The Top Ten brands, what can you learn from them? Well, from #5, GE, I have learned that it helps not pay a penny in income taxes, move more of your operation overseas, and have your CEO be a czar for Obama. So we should all try to emulate this!

[NevaforLeadership]

08:35 AM on 01/19/2012

GE does, indeed, pay taxes:

In 2010 it paid $2.7 billion cash tax payments during the year, and it paid $1.05 billion in income taxes.

The lemming-like belief in groundless media reports or viral internet rumours without ever bothering to check, particularly when checking reputable sources these days is so easy, is astounding and, frankly, scary, because these lemmings vote!

No. We absolutely should not emulate the lazy propensity to parrot rumours and innuendos without checking.

[skyeagle]

01:53 PM on 01/19/2012

hmmm, I get a different take from a CNN Money Report dated April 16, 2010. It states that GE filed over 7,000 different tax returns in 2010. The net effect of their payments were "ZERO." They made $10.8 billion dollars over seas and had a $408 million dollar loss in the U.S. They paid "ZERO" dollars to the IRS according to CNN Money. There you go lemming!

[f1nesse101]

10:30 PM on 01/18/2012

I can't understand why Google or Apple would be a brand? What do they provide the consumer with?

[hondamike456]

11:20 PM on 01/18/2012

Huh? Is this is a real question? What does Apple provide the consumer? How about Mac computers, I-Phones, I-Pads, I-Pods, I-Touchs, I-Tunes.

Were you trying to be sarcastic with this post?

[NevaforLeadership]

08:40 AM on 01/19/2012

You forgot Google: pretty well all our internet searches.

[NevaforLeadership]

08:36 AM on 01/19/2012

OMG, you have to be kidding!

[garylinn]

09:04 PM on 01/18/2012

I actually guessed the number one without looking. I am a Coke brand saver...I have a coke room with all kinds of Coca Cola stuff in it. Some are worth a lot of money...old bottles with Coke still in them. I used to buy and sell on Ebay but my room is full and I can't save anything else. It's also my TV room so I get to set and admire all of my Coke memorabilia.

[SACULA]

08:59 PM on 01/18/2012

drink coke every day with my quart of rum.

[NevaforLeadership]

07:07 PM on 01/18/2012

A key to brand success is being true to the brand and core. Coca Cola has been and is fraught with brand deviation:

Little drops of joy in India vs. massive demonstrations against Coke for perceived loss and pollution of ground water.

Stated interest in health to counteract its massive sugar content.

And the cosmic-background-radiating brand blunder of all time: New Coke.

[ginocat55]

06:56 PM on 01/18/2012

no beer????

[AlkiDweller]

12:26 PM on 01/28/2012

American beer? Global? Maybe for the American tourist.

[andyuper]

06:43 PM on 01/18/2012

Guess I'll just stick to my booze and cigarettes. No artificial sweeteners, and the tobacco is the finest grown....URP!...WHEEZE!

[Scott Kenan]

06:16 PM on 01/18/2012

Glad to see that ONE company primarily owned by the various Kenan Family Charitable Trusts (also includes ExxonMobil, Chevron, Bank of America, various Florida utilites, transportation, etc.) did well in the survey!!!

See more of how I am working with my distant Kenan relatives to TAKE DOWN the top of the Republican Party for running all the illegal drug activity in this country. In 1990, I tracked Newt Gingrich's bringing drugs by train from Mexico into Stone Mountain Park behind my home in GA.

See my blog with index to subjects a couple of scrolls down from link to my memoir of working for Tennessee Williams (book contains some but not most of the details) The blog has the DETAILS!!! if you wish to comment here, please be sure to read some of the blog first, unlike other posters who have only displayed ignorance here.

http://scottkenan.blogspot.com

http://scottkenan.blogspot.com/2011/05/newt-gingrich-stone-mountain-drug.html

http://scottkenan.blogspot.com/2011/09/kenan-family-in-north-carolina.html

Thank you,
Scott

[orlenda]

08:24 PM on 01/18/2012

BofA is teh worst company ofn the face of the planet

[Mr MOTO]

06:08 PM on 01/18/2012

All companies Progressives love to hate. This site really is comedical at times.

[Silverfern]

06:11 PM on 01/18/2012

Thanks for spewing lies.

[Mr MOTO]

06:41 PM on 01/18/2012

Okay, sorry, it's not really comical at all.

[FSMbaby]

05:46 PM on 01/18/2012

McDonalds and Coca Cola. Is it any wonder we're a bunch of diabetes plagued lard butts?

[lakeside45]

06:56 PM on 01/18/2012

No one is forcing them down your gullet. Get off the lard butt and move and all things in moderation. People need to stop the blame game for being pigs.

[FSMbaby]

08:02 AM on 01/19/2012

True. But I don't think most people realize just what's in those products. Most people can't pronounce the ingredients and have no idea what they mean.

[NevaforLeadership]

07:14 PM on 01/18/2012

In my opinion, neither should be on this list.

Coke is the most well-known brand in the world, but its brand management is another issue; and the deviation of Macdonald's from its core brand is causing much corporate and customer confusion.

[larryberglof]

09:58 PM on 01/18/2012

Customer confusion.....really? It's crappy junk food, what could possibly be confusing about that?

[FSMbaby]

05:42 PM on 01/18/2012

You can use Coke to clean the corrosion off of your battery terminals. Imagine what it does to your teeth. Food for thought.

[Scott Kenan]

06:09 PM on 01/18/2012

What does it do??? Are you sure you aren't confusing the teeth of Meth-heads with Coca-Cola drinkers???

I don't drink that much of it although the Kenan Charitable Trusts won the largest block of Coca-Cola stock.

And unlike Pepsi, Coke puts money back into the community, supporting sports, education, and the arts.

Thanks,
Scott

[bi-poplar]

06:11 PM on 01/18/2012

Lemon juice will do the same thing, but I don't hear anyone bitching about lemons

[orlenda]

08:27 PM on 01/18/2012

awesome comment! cola is seriously full fo stuff that terrible for you though...i worry about my iinsides more than my teeth with it though...

[ogservice]

05:39 PM on 01/18/2012

Why did this list purposefully exclude oil companies? Whether it's BP, Exxon or Agip, no way will I be convinced Hewlett-Packard surpasses those companies for brand recognition, sales or economic impact.

Hell, when it comes to worldwide brand recognition, where's the BBC?

[hpycmpr155]

05:34 PM on 01/18/2012

Me love Coca cola

[JCleveland]

05:33 PM on 01/18/2012

Isn't this article in-congruent with the one going after the Name of the Carolina Panther's Stadium?

Oh, it's just some corporations that exploit their workers, offshore their jobs and pay net negative taxes that are on the list. And whether you are talking about the specifically, or about an add on a building they took out...

Got it.

[blackdragon471]

07:03 PM on 01/18/2012

stop Jc! There will be no telling of the truth in such a corrupt country!