3 is the magic number, or so sang De La Soul. (Anyone else remember that one??)).
Douglas Adams would have you believe it’s 42.
But my magic number is 35.
35 is the number of brands that appear across all 3 global brand valuation studies (BRANDZ, Interbrand and Brand Finance). I’ve been researching the brand strategies of the brands that appear in these studies since 2013. (Yes – I’m a total brand strategy geek, and proud of it). But it’s the ones that appear across all that I do a really deep dive on every year. And this year there are 35 of them.
Now, I hear some of you scoffing. Because it’s easy to take pot shots at these valuation studies, as the inimitable Mark Ritson does here. The figures for the same brand are often widely different. Take Google – who BRANDZ value at $323,601m and Brand Finance have at $159,722m. Just a teeny $163,879m difference. A mere...