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According to the recent ranking released by the consultancy agency Brand Finance, the world’s top brand for 2011 is Google.
This is not surprising, given Google’s strong market position for the past 12 months. More surprising is the overall top 10 ranking which shows an unprecedented growth in the recognition and global acceptance of high-tech companies doing business mostly in the IT and telecommunications sectors. In the top 10 global brands, 6 are tech companies Google, Microsoft, IBM, Vodafone, Apple and AT&T, the rest in the list are Wal-Mart, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and general Electric.
This is quite fascinating. For me, this signals a tremendous shift to recognising that the high-tech industry is no longer recognised by a select few, rather, it has penetrated hard into the mainstream consciousness and has replaced strong brands such as Coca-Cola, HSBC or BP. I believe that next year or in two years’ time, the list would be complemented by brands such as Facebook and Twitter. As it is known in the business world, the economic crisis takes a heavy toll on many companies and organisations but for a few, it is the only opportunity to go mainstream and take advantage of the chaos by building powerful brands.
In a highly globalised world, brands are important because they give you assurance for certain quality no matter where in the world you are and having technology brands in the top of the list opens so many doors for young entrepreneurs who have not been confident that they could build a powerful brand, until now. I hope that this would empower more and more young people to become encouraged and who knows, maybe build the next big brand?