APRIL 23, 2007

An interesting list for F1 marketers

The Financial Times has today published the second annual Brandz Top 100 Most Powerful Brands ranking, compiled by the market research firm Millward Brown Optimor. This identifies the most powerful brands measured by their dollar value, based on both financial data and perceptions of the brand.

The interesting thing about the survey is that the tradition big brands - such as Coca-Cola, IBM and Microsoft - have all been eclipsed by Google, which the survey reckons to have a brand worth $66bn. General Electric is next with $61.8bn ahead of Microsoft $54.9bn and and Coca-Cola $44bn.

The others in the top 10 are China Mobile, Marlboro, Wal-Mart, Citi, IBM and Toyota.

Just outside the top 10 are McDonalds, Nokia, Bank of America, BMW and Hewlett Packard.

The interesting thing is that there are only a few Formula 1 sponsors in the top 100 with Vodafone (22nd), Intel (25th), Mercedes-Benz (29th), Honda (36th), Banco Santander (47th), ING (53rd), Accenture (62nd), FedEx (69th), Siemens (71th) and RBS (82nd).

This means that there is plenty of scope for F1 marketers to convince those who are not on the list that they need more brand exposure or those in the list to move up the ranking, something which F1 can obviously help them achieve.