Marketing firms Landor Associates and Penn Schoen & Berland have come out with their annual study of how consumers think certain major brands performed in 2006 and were likely to do in 2007.
This list points out the disparity between perceptions of brands and how well the brand companies do, at least in the stock market.
The first brand on the list is an exception. Google (GOOG) was ranked as the hottest brand of 2006 and was predicted to be the hottest brand this year. No one what has owned the stock would argue. Another good match between a hot brand and a stock price is the iPod, which ranked very high. Apple’s (AAPL) share price had a nice move in 2006. But, in the cases of both Apple and Google, their big moves came before last year.
Perhaps the brand perception ls an indicator that a stock’s best move up is behind it.
Ebay (EBAY) and Yahoo! (YHOO) are both on the 2006 list and make it for 2007 as well. Investors certainly wish that being high on the list would have saved them from large stock price declines over the course of last year. The same holds true for Amazon (AMZN) which made the cut of the 20 hottest brands. Sony (SNE) is on the list, too. That has not worked out too well for shareholders.
Making the top 20 list was not a disaster for all public company share prices. Verizon (VZ) is on the list and did well. The same holds true for Target (TGT). And Starbucks (SBUX).
But, brand performance and stock performance don’t match up in most cases.
End of lesson.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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