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日益全球化、競爭日益激烈的市場，品牌正變得前所未有的重要。

Millward Brown Optimor日前發布了第三份全球百強品牌年度排名，其部分依據就是WPP的Brandz數據庫，其中涵蓋5萬多個品牌。排名發現，全球百強品牌的總價值約為1.9萬億美元，相當于意大利的國內生產總值(GDP)。

“品牌正變得越來越重要，”Millward Brown Optimor首席執行官喬安娜•塞登(Joanna Seddon)表示。“科技品牌今年表現很好，谷歌(Google)和蘋果(Apple)均位列前10。谷歌已經連續兩年被評為世界最具價值品牌。”

“世界上一些非常成功的公司之所以成功，是因為他們在發展業務的同時也不忘建設自己的品牌，”她補充道。“移動運營商Orange就是一個很好的例子。他們甚至在業務開展前就開始投資于自己的品牌。”

不過，Millward Brown Optimor也一直在評估品牌對股市表現的影響——人們目前對這個領域的研究很少。它已經建立了一個“Brandz”投資組合，包括了全球百強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計算的，因此會受到匯率的影響。

Brandz組合以標準普爾500指數(S&P 500)為參照，因為這個指數與該組合的構成最接近：大型股和小型股的比例、行業和國別構成等。

“我們沒有使用富時指數(FTSE)，因為世界頂級品牌中有8個在美國，如果參照富時指數，可能會受到匯率變化的扭曲，”Millward Brown Optimor高級咨詢師馬爾特•努恩(Malte Nuhn)表示。

組合剛建立時，不是所有公司都接收到了同等的投資。品牌較強的公司以及品牌業務占集團業務很大比例的公司收到的投資較多。

Millward Brown Optimor還抽出一些較強的品牌，組建了另外一個組合——這些品牌的品牌貢獻率超過30%（在排名中，品牌貢獻率被指數化，實際上它們是百分比）。這個“強大品牌”投資組合包含了全球百強品牌中約三分之二的品牌。

截至4月3日，標準普爾指數在過去12個月內上漲了3%，Brandz Top 100投資組合上漲了15%，而強大品牌組合上漲了22%。

截至去年12月31日，標準普爾指數在去年上漲了11%，Brandz Top 100投資組合上漲了25%，而強大品牌組合上漲了34%。

Millward Brown Optimor的研究顯示，具有強大品牌價值的公司和產品能明顯獲得較高的回報，無論是在牛市還是在最近的市場低迷時期。

朗濤策略設計顧問公司(Landor Associates)首席營銷官海斯•羅思(Hayes Roth)表示：“強大品牌價值和強勁股票表現之間存在顯著的一致性。”

“品牌力量與股市表現堅挺有很大聯系，平均來說，品牌價值可以為一個公司增加逾25%的市值——具體數字可能因公司類型而有所不同。”

塞登相信，這種表現背后的原因之一是：強大的品牌更容易提高收入和市場份額，因為人們更容易受這些產品吸引，更容易對品牌保持忠誠。

“你還有可能獲得價格溢價，”努恩補充道。“蘋果產品的售價比競爭對手的同類產品要高約20%，這會影響利潤率。”

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，你可以做得很棒，什么事都做得很對，但你迅速擴展全球業務時，一些最初造就品牌的東西就很難保持了。他們過分擴張了，”羅思稱。

“世界的美國化曾對麥當勞(McDonald's)造成一些影響，但他們卷土重來，自我改造，因此他們的品牌排名已經上升，”他補充道

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

“你可以支付較低的薪水，他們也會呆得更長；你可以從供應商那兒得到更優惠的條件。如果一個知名品牌投資于新產品或新市場，往往可以找到別人替你承擔投資風險，”塞登表示。

目前還沒有一個全球品牌基金，但Millward Brown Optimor稱，它的研究已激起基金公司的極大興趣，提議創立一個全球品牌基金，用該研究的數據作為挑選股票的依據。

羅思表示：“看看Optimor的研究報告。如果你選了前五名（的股票），你的收益一定不錯。百強品牌中，股票也有漲落，因為影響股價的還有其它因素。

“但強大的品牌能帶你度過難關，獲得更好的結果。全球品牌基金將是一個長期投資，它應該比較像藍籌股基金。如果有這樣一個基金，應該會很棒。肯定會引起極大興趣。”