There’s No Business Like Show Business, Particularly Merged With Tech And Ads

Michael Hedges June 22, 2022 Follow on Twitter

In the business of business, the brand is everything. Still. Producers of goods and services pay careful attention to their brands. Brand value is the accepted measure of the relationship between something for sale and a customers willingness to pay. The concepts may seem a bit old-school in the post-modern world where value is rather indeterminate.

Somebody has to put a number to this. Every business school grad thinks in terms of numbers. Each year since 1998, analytics consultancy Kantar has produced its BrandZ Most Valuable Global Brands ranking, appearing just ahead of the Cannes Lions advertising festival. The happy advertising people are creatively intertwined with brands.

Apple leads the list of 100 brands, surprising nobody. Kantar estimates its brand value at just a shade under US$1 trillion. The Apple brand remains very cool. It has reached beyond mobile phones and laptops to TV and other things attractive to completely attached Zoomers. All of this was done by design, brand strategy. Last year Apple ranked 3rd, the move up suggesting the coronavirus effect. Apple is considered a premium brand.

At number two, Google also moved up. It ranked third last year. Everybody in the world knows Google as the leading access point for the internet. Kantar estimates its brand value at US$819.6 billion, up 79% one year on. Google sells advertising, lots of advertising. Google’s YouTube brand is listed separately as is the Google Cloud business.

Amazon was top ranked last year. Now, it’s number three. For most consumers Amazon moves stuff to their door through e-commerce. Amazon is the supply chain. There is also the Amazon Prime Video streaming service, which competes with Disney, Netflix and Apple TV. Amazon also makes a ton of money on services most consumers neither know or understand but Kantar excluded those amounts from the rankings.

The Kantar BrandZ Media and Entertainment category is comprised almost entirely by social media and streaming video. The top ten brands in the category are valued at US$1.47 trillion. Google (Alphabet) tops this category, followed - at some distance - by Facebook (Meta), Instagram (Meta), YouTube (Alphabet), WeChat, Netflix, Disney, LinkedIn, TikTok and Snapchat.

In its report, Kantar highlights the “pivotal year for social media.” This is largely due to tracking cookies being “on their way out” forcing changes to online marketing. “Google’s core ad business shouldn’t be terribly affected by this shift, because it relies more on voluntarily provides consumer inputs like search terms.” The report warns of “political fatigue” and “stagnating product relevance.”

Streaming services, said the report, are maturing, now less “disruptive” and more “evolving.” Subscriptions, which brought them to the dance, are now on trial. “In markets like the United States, for instance, it’s becoming clear that there’s a ceiling to the number of streaming subscriptions that people are willing to pay for. Even if subscription rates in the US and Europe are leveling off for the moment, there is still plenty of opportunity to gain new customers globally.” Hence, the big streamers are investing “eye-popping” amounts for “tentpole” movies, series and sports. Expect, they say, consolidation.