Global 500: 2015 report on the world's most valuable brands

What is the purpose of a strong brand; to attract customers, to build loyalty, to motivate staff? All true, but for a commercial brand at least, the first answer must always be ‘to make money’.

Huge investments are made in the design, launch and ongoing promotion of brands. Given their potential financial value, this makes sense. Unfortunately most organisations fail to go beyond that, missing huge opportunities to effectively make use of what are often their most important assets.

Monitoring of brand performance should be the next step, but is often sporadic. Where it does take place it frequently lacks financial rigour and is heavily reliant on qualitative measures poorly understood by non-marketers. As a result, marketing teams struggle to communicate the value of their work and boards then underestimate the significance of their brands to the business.

Sceptical finance teams, unconvinced by what they perceive as marketing mumbo jumbo may fail to agree necessary investments. What marketing spend there is can end up poorly directed as marketers are left to operate with insufficient financial guidance or accountability. The end result can be a slow but steady downward spiral of poor communication, wasted resources and a negative impact on the bottom line.

It is all well and good to want a strong brand that customers connect with, but as with any asset, without knowing the precise, financial value, how can you know if you are maximising your returns? If you are intending to license a brand, how can you know you are getting a fair price? If you are intending to sell, how do you know what the right time is?

Brand Finance has conducted hundreds of brand and branded-business valuations to help answer these questions. The following report is a first step to understanding more about brands, how to value them and how to use that information to benefit the business. The team and I look forward to continuing the conversation with you.

View the report here and see the brand 500 table below.