It’s that time of year again…. Time for the Interbrand rankings of the Best Global Brands, which BusinessWeek published yesterday. (BusinessWeek article here; Interbrand analysis here.) Three Seattle companies cracked the top 100: Microsoft, Amazon.com, and Starbucks. Each maintained its position from last year or climbed a bit higher on the list. Microsoft ranked second, same as last year; Amazon.com rose three spots to 65, and Starbucks likewise advanced three spots to 88.
Here’s what the the BusinessWeek story says about Seattle’s big brands:
To qualify for the list, “each brand must derive at least a third of its earnings outside of its home country, be recognizable outside of its base of customers, and have publicly available marketing and financial data.” Interbrand also excluded portfolios of brands like Procter & Gamble, airlines because it deemed it too difficult to separate brand from nonbrand value, and pharmaceutical brands because it found consumers relate primarily to the product rather than the producer.
The Canadian Trademark Blog, which tipped me off that the list was out, discusses how Canadian brands fared here.