Kantar puts out its Most Valuable Global Brands list. Much of the list makes sense in most years. Apple is in the lead and has been for years. Usually, other tech brands, like Google, Microsoft and Amazon, are near the top. In the new 2023 study, several brands suffered value erosion. Some fell a great deal. One problem with the list is that it looks backward. This sometimes makes Kantar’s efforts to promote its own brand backfire badly. (These companies have the worst reputations.)
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Nothing is a better example of Kantar’s problem than the fact that the value of Nvidia dropped 41% to $72 billion on the 2023 edition of the list. Oddly, no one at Kantar bothers to mention that recent developments at any brand on its list of the most valuable could change how a company should be ranked, even at the last moment. It is a huge flaw.

The data collection process for the list is awe-inspiring. Its database includes information from 4.2 million consumers. It also has data on 21,000 brands across 540 categories. As with almost all brand valuations, the way the final figures are calculated is a black box. Kantar considers the value of a company that owns the brand and its contribution to a company’s overall value. It segregates company assets that do not contribute to brand value. All in all, it is a very reasonable approach.

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The deep trouble comes when a brand’s value changes at the tail end of Kantar’s process. Nvidia, which had a challenging year for almost all of 2022, had a sudden turn of events that drove its stock up 81% in three months. However, that is a secondary consideration. Nvidia is at the center of one of the most significant technological developments over the past several decades. That is not reflected in the Kantar presentation, undermining the entire study.

There are examples beyond Nvidia. In the study, Netflix’s value is down 32% to $49 billion. It also has staged a remarkable turnaround in the past two months. At the other end of the spectrum, the value of the Budweiser brand dropped only 14% to $20 billion. Recent developments that involve the brand certainly eroded its value much more than that.

Kantar may argue that the major changes in the fortunes of these brands have only occurred in the past few weeks. However, the study was released today. That compromises the usefulness of the list considerably.

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