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AUGUST 4, 2003
The 100 Top Brands Here's how we calculate the power in a name To rank the world's 100 most valuable global brands, we set three hurdles that all contenders have to meet to merit consideration. First, they must have brand values greater than $1 billion. They also have to be global in nature, meaning they must derive at least a third of their sales from outside their home countries and have significant distribution throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Finally, they must have publicly available marketing and financial data. That excluded some big brands, such as Visa International, the BBC, and Mars. How do you place a value on a brand? Some attempts rely on little more than opinion polls or ad spending. BusinessWeek selected Interbrand's method because it values brands the same way analysts value other assets: on the basis of how much they're likely to earn in the future. Those projected profits are then discounted to a present value based on how risky the projected earnings are -- that is, the likelihood that they will, in fact, materialize. To start the process, Interbrand first figures out what the brand's overall sales are. (The brand may be almost the entire company, as in the case of McDonald's Corp. For others, such as Marlboro, it may be just a portion.) Next, with the help of analysts from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley, Interbrand projects net earnings for the brand. It then deducts a charge for the cost of owning the tangible assets, on the theory that whatever income is generated beyond that cost is due to intangible factors. This is the economic value added by things like patents, customer lists, and, of course, the brand. The next step is to winnow the earnings generated by the brand from the earnings generated by other intangibles. For example, are people buying Shell gasoline because of the brand name or because the gas station is conveniently located? Interbrand uses market research and interviews with industry executives to sift through those variables. The final phase is to analyze the strength of the brand to figure out how risky those future brand earnings are. To calculate the brand's strength, Interbrand looks at seven factors, including the brand's market leadership, its stability, and its ability to cross geographic and cultural borders. The risk analysis produces a discount rate that is applied to the brand earnings to come up with a net present value. BusinessWeek and Interbrand believe this figure comes closest to representing the true economic value of that complex array of forces that make up a brand. 
BW MALL
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