World's most valuable brands 2021
What is very clear is that resilient brands benefit from clever, relevant strategy and are built thanks to massive investments in marketing.
Despite the devastating effects of the pandemic the world's biggest brands have grown in value over the last year by more than 42% - reaching a total valuation for the Top 100 global brands of over US$7 trillion.
At #1 on the list is Amazon whose brand value is estimated to be in excess of US$684bn.
Lockdowns have obviously been kind to Amazon, but despite the disruptions the best brands in the world seem to almost be immune to disruption, their forward momentum continues - no matter what.
Visual Capitalist have a useful infographic of the Top 100 and where they rank.
For us, we find some of the emerging brands that are on the list interesting.
Brands like Pindoudou - an online marketplace for agricultural products in China, which connects farmers with consumers on their platform; and Meituan a group-discount website which sells vouchers from merchants for deals, subject to a minimum number of buyers who demand a discount, from which Meituan generates commissions.
These emerging brands point to an alternative 'utility-driven' approach to the future of brand building that is quite different to the narrative-driven, media-powered American style.
What is very clear is that resilient brands benefit from clever, relevant strategy and are built thanks to massive investments in marketing. For sometime there was a lot of debate around the value of the marketing function within organisations, but that debate has largely been settled now. Good marketing is more valuable than ever before, those that honour this fact, succeed.
Feel free to download the full Kantar report right here.