Branding is becoming ever more important as companies face an increasingly global and competitive marketplace.

Millward Brown Optimor's third annual ranking of the world's top 100 most powerful brands is based partly on WPP's Brandz database, which covers more than 50,000 of them. It found that the world's top 100 brands have a total value of about $1,900bn, equivalent to the GDP of Italy.

“Brand is becoming more and more important,” says Joanna Seddon, chief executive of Millward Brown Optimor. “Technology brands have done very well this year, Google and Apple are in the top 10. For the second year running Google is the world's most valuable brand.

“Some of the world's most successful companies are successful because they built their brand along with the business,” she adds. “Orange is a good example of that. They invested in the brand before they even had a business.”

But Millward Brown Optimor has also been measuring the effects of brand on stock market performance – an area where little research has been done. It has created a “Brandz” portfolio incorporating all the brands in its top 100 survey that it was possible to invest in.

The brands had to be public limited companies with liquid stock. The portfolio returns were measured in US dollars so the results are subject to currency effects.

The Brandz portfolio is benchmarked against the S&P 500 as this exchange mirrors its composition most closely – large and small caps, industry and international exposure.

“We didn't use the FTSE, as eight of the world's top brands are in the US so it would be skewed by currency effects,” says Malte Nuhn, senior consultant at Millward Brown Optimor.

Not all companies received equal investment at the onset of the portfolio. There was a higher investment in companies with stronger brands and those whose branded businesses were a larger part of the group.

Millward Brown also isolated the stronger brands into a separate portfolio – those that have a brand contribution above 30 per cent (in the rankings the brand contributions are indexed but in fact they are percentages). This “Strong Brands” portfolio incorporates around two-thirds of the world's top 100 brands.

On April 3, the S&P had risen 3 per cent over 12 months, the Brandz Top 100 portfolio was up 15 per cent and the strong brands portfolio was up 22 per cent.

On December 31 last year the S&P was up 11 per cent, the Brandz Top 100 portfolio was up 25 per cent and the strong brands portfolio was up 34 per cent.

The Millward Brown study showed that products and companies with strong brand value enjoyed markedly stronger returns in good times and also during the recent market downturn.

Hayes Roth, chief marketing officer of Landor Associates, the consultancy, says: “There is remarkable consistency between strong brand value and stock performance.”

“Brand power can be significantly linked to stock market strength, adding on average – and depending on category – more than 25 per cent market value to an organisation.”

Ms Seddon believes that the drivers behind this outperformance include the fact that strong brands can more readily increase their revenues and market share. This is because people are more attracted to the products and are more likely to be loyal to them.

“You also may have the possibility of achieving a price premium,” adds Mr Nuhn. “Apple's products sell for roughly 20 per cent more than equivalents from rivals, which will affect margins.”

But there are plenty of examples of strong brands hitting nasty bumps in the road.

“Look at Starbucks. You can do a world class job of building brands and do everything right but when you rapidly expand your global footprint it is hard to maintain what made the brand great in the first place. They over-extended themselves,” says Mr Roth.

“McDonald's suffered with the Americanisation of the world but they went back and reinvented themselves and they have moved up the list,” he adds.

Studies have shown that a strong brand affects not only demand but also the supply chain. For example, if you have a strong brand such as Goldman Sachs or Microsoft it is easier to attract top graduates from business schools.

“You can pay them less and they will stay longer, you can get better terms with suppliers. If you have a strong brand and invest in new products or markets you can get somebody else to take your investment risk,” says Ms Seddon.

There are no global brand funds to date, although Millward Brown Optimor says its study has generated a lot of interest from the fund management community who have mooted the idea of creating a global brand fund where they would use the data as a basis for stock picking.

Mr Roth says: “Look at the Optimor study. If you had picked the top five you would have done OK. Of the top 100 brands there is a lot of jockeying up and down because there are other things that affect performance.”

“But strong brands will see you through and leave you in a far better place. A global brand fund would be a long-haul investment, it ought to look like a blue chip fund. It would be terrific to see. There is certainly a lot of interest.”

隨著各大公司面臨著一個(gè)日益全球化、競(jìng)爭(zhēng)日益激烈的市場(chǎng)，品牌正變得前所未有的重要。

Millward Brown Optimor日前發(fā)布了第三份全球百?gòu)?qiáng)品牌年度排名，其部分依據(jù)就是WPP的Brandz數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)，其中涵蓋5萬(wàn)多個(gè)品牌。排名發(fā)現(xiàn)，全球百?gòu)?qiáng)品牌的總價(jià)值約為1.9萬(wàn)億美元，相當(dāng)于意大利的國(guó)內(nèi)生產(chǎn)總值(GDP)。

“品牌正變得越來(lái)越重要，”Millward Brown Optimor首席執(zhí)行官喬安娜•塞登(Joanna Seddon)表示。“科技品牌今年表現(xiàn)很好，谷歌(Google)和蘋果(Apple)均位列前10。谷歌已經(jīng)連續(xù)兩年被評(píng)為世界最具價(jià)值品牌。”

“世界上一些非常成功的公司之所以成功，是因?yàn)樗麄冊(cè)诎l(fā)展業(yè)務(wù)的同時(shí)也不忘建設(shè)自己的品牌，”她補(bǔ)充道。“移動(dòng)運(yùn)營(yíng)商Orange就是一個(gè)很好的例子。他們甚至在業(yè)務(wù)開展前就開始投資于自己的品牌。”

不過(guò)，Millward Brown Optimor也一直在評(píng)估品牌對(duì)股市表現(xiàn)的影響——人們目前對(duì)這個(gè)領(lǐng)域的研究很少。它已經(jīng)建立了一個(gè)“Brandz”投資組合，包括了全球百?gòu)?qiáng)品牌中所有能投資的品牌。

這些品牌必須是有流通股的股份有限公司。該投資組合的收益是用美元來(lái)計(jì)算的，因此會(huì)受到匯率的影響。

Brandz組合以標(biāo)準(zhǔn)普爾500指數(shù)(S&P 500)為參照，因?yàn)檫@個(gè)指數(shù)與該組合的構(gòu)成最接近：大型股和小型股的比例、行業(yè)和國(guó)別構(gòu)成等。

“我們沒(méi)有使用富時(shí)指數(shù)(FTSE)，因?yàn)槭澜珥敿?jí)品牌中有8個(gè)在美國(guó)，如果參照富時(shí)指數(shù)，可能會(huì)受到匯率變化的扭曲，”Millward Brown Optimor高級(jí)咨詢師馬爾特•努恩(Malte Nuhn)表示。

組合剛建立時(shí)，不是所有公司都接收到了同等的投資。品牌較強(qiáng)的公司以及品牌業(yè)務(wù)占集團(tuán)業(yè)務(wù)很大比例的公司收到的投資較多。

Millward Brown Optimor還抽出一些較強(qiáng)的品牌，組建了另外一個(gè)組合——這些品牌的品牌貢獻(xiàn)率超過(guò)30%（在排名中，品牌貢獻(xiàn)率被指數(shù)化，實(shí)際上它們是百分比）。這個(gè)“強(qiáng)大品牌”投資組合包含了全球百?gòu)?qiáng)品牌中約三分之二的品牌。

截至4月3日，標(biāo)準(zhǔn)普爾指數(shù)在過(guò)去12個(gè)月內(nèi)上漲了3%，Brandz Top 100投資組合上漲了15%，而強(qiáng)大品牌組合上漲了22%。

截至去年12月31日，標(biāo)準(zhǔn)普爾指數(shù)在去年上漲了11%，Brandz Top 100投資組合上漲了25%，而強(qiáng)大品牌組合上漲了34%。

Millward Brown Optimor的研究顯示，具有強(qiáng)大品牌價(jià)值的公司和產(chǎn)品能明顯獲得較高的回報(bào)，無(wú)論是在牛市還是在最近的市場(chǎng)低迷時(shí)期。

朗濤策略設(shè)計(jì)顧問(wèn)公司(Landor Associates)首席營(yíng)銷官海斯•羅思(Hayes Roth)表示：“強(qiáng)大品牌價(jià)值和強(qiáng)勁股票表現(xiàn)之間存在顯著的一致性。”

“品牌力量與股市表現(xiàn)堅(jiān)挺有很大聯(lián)系，平均來(lái)說(shuō)，品牌價(jià)值可以為一個(gè)公司增加逾25%的市值——具體數(shù)字可能因公司類型而有所不同。”

塞登相信，這種表現(xiàn)背后的原因之一是：強(qiáng)大的品牌更容易提高收入和市場(chǎng)份額，因?yàn)槿藗兏�容易受這些產(chǎn)品吸引，更容易對(duì)品牌保持忠誠(chéng)。

“你還有可能獲得價(jià)格溢價(jià)，”努恩補(bǔ)充道。“蘋果產(chǎn)品的售價(jià)比競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手的同類產(chǎn)品要高約20%，這會(huì)影響利潤(rùn)率。”

但是，也有很多大品牌摔跟頭的例子。

“看看星巴克(Starbucks)。建立品牌時(shí)，你可以做得很棒，什么事都做得很對(duì)，但你迅速擴(kuò)展全球業(yè)務(wù)時(shí)，一些最初造就品牌的東西就很難保持了。他們過(guò)分?jǐn)U張了，”羅思稱。

“世界的美國(guó)化曾對(duì)麥當(dāng)勞(McDonald's)造成一些影響，但他們卷土重來(lái)，自我改造，因此他們的品牌排名已經(jīng)上升，”他補(bǔ)充道

研究表明，強(qiáng)大的品牌不但能影響需求，也能影響供應(yīng)鏈。例如，如果你擁有高盛(Goldman Sachs)或微軟(Microsoft)這樣的強(qiáng)大品牌，就很容易吸引商學(xué)院的尖子生。

“你可以支付較低的薪水，他們也會(huì)呆得更長(zhǎng)；你可以從供應(yīng)商那兒得到更優(yōu)惠的條件。如果一個(gè)知名品牌投資于新產(chǎn)品或新市場(chǎng)，往往可以找到別人替你承擔(dān)投資風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，”塞登表示。

目前還沒(méi)有一個(gè)全球品牌基金，但Millward Brown Optimor稱，它的研究已激起基金公司的極大興趣，提議創(chuàng)立一個(gè)全球品牌基金，用該研究的數(shù)據(jù)作為挑選股票的依據(jù)。

羅思表示：“看看Optimor的研究報(bào)告。如果你選了前五名（的股票），你的收益一定不錯(cuò)。百?gòu)?qiáng)品牌中，股票也有漲落，因?yàn)橛绊懝蓛r(jià)的還有其它因素。

“但強(qiáng)大的品牌能帶你度過(guò)難關(guān)，獲得更好的結(jié)果。全球品牌基金將是一個(gè)長(zhǎng)期投資，它應(yīng)該比較像藍(lán)籌股基金。如果有這樣一個(gè)基金，應(yīng)該會(huì)很棒。肯定會(huì)引起極大興趣。”