To be filed under: “Depends on Who Ya Ask.” It seems Apple’s brand varies greatly in value, according to who is doing the calculations. The brand could be worth “only” $33.5 Billion, or it could have a value all the way up to $183 billion. Who’s right? Why the big variance?
9to5MacThe most valuable brand in the world, according to WPP PLC’s Millward Brown, is Apple Inc., worth $183 billion—nearly a third of the company’s market capitalization of $581 billion.
Omnicom Group Inc.’s Interbrand, however, judges Apple’s brand as worth only $33.5 billion, or eighth, behind such names as MicrosoftCorp. (ranked third at $59 billion), International Business Machines Corp. and Coca-Cola Co. (first at $71.9 billion). Interbrand notes its estimate of Apple’s brand value has risen.
What’s up with the big swing between the values in the two studies?
“The value of brand is both art and science,” says Allen Adamson, a managing director of Landor Associates, a branding firm owned by WPP. “It’s simple in theory but hard to pin down in reality. It’s really about how much would a consumer pay for a caramel colored soda versus how much they would pay for a Coke.”
From the visual in the graphic above, it seems that companies that make colored sugar water, athletic shoes, and cheap furniture are easier to evaluate than an electronic manufacturer like Apple. I’m guessing Millward Brown is a little closer to the real value of Apple’s brand, and maybe Interbrand should examine their method of calculating values.
