Nokia may be preparing to kick off a monstrous advertising blitz alongside the launch of its first round of Windows Phones, UK-based Marketing Magazine reports. The advertising campaign, which will apparently kick off in October when Nokia finally begins pushing out Microsoft-powered smartphones, is reportedly valued at just under $130 million. The new global campaign will seemingly be a rebranding mission of sorts, and will reportedly run for six months. Nokia has a steep climb ahead as it attempts to slow its bleeding market share while simultaneously attempting to get customers on board with a fledgling Windows Phone operating system that has not been well received thus far. Despite our love of the platform here at BGR, Microsoft’s share of the U.S. smartphone market has dropped by 35% since Windows Phone first launched in November, and International sales have been lackluster so far according to reports. Looking past its slow start, however, some analysts believe Windows Phone will quickly become one of the most popular mobile operating systems in the world. Pyramid Research, for example, believes Nokia will help propel Windows Phone sales faster than even Android saw during its rapid ascent to the No. 1 spot. Pyramid expects global Windows Phone sales to top Android in 2013.

[Via Engadget]

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Apple has surpassed Google as world’s most valuable brand, according to advertising firm WPP’s “BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands” study. Apple’s brand value has ballooned 859% since 2006, and increased 84% to $153.3 billion this year. Tech companies dominate the rankings: AT&T, China Mobile, IBM, and Microsoft all have spots in the top-10 most valuable brands list, and McDonald’s is the only non-tech brand in the top-5. Google had reigned supreme for the past four years before being displaced by Apple, and Amazon surpassed Walmart to become the No. 1 retailer. Hit the jump for the full report from WPP.

Apple becomes world’s most valuable brand, says WPP’s BrandZ

9 May, 2011
Emerging markets account for 19 of the top 100 brands according to WPP company Millward Brown Optimor in its 2011 study of the Most Valuable Global Brands

NEW YORK – Registering a staggering 84 percent increase in value over the past year, Apple has emerged as the most valuable brand in the world, ending the four-year reign of Google at the top of the table in the sixth annual BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands study.
The Apple brand, as calculated by Millward Brown Optimor, a WPP company, has increased in value by 859 percent since 2006 and now stands at $153.3 billion. Other key findings in the study are that during the economic recovery of the last year, the combined value of all the brands in the top 100 has risen by 17 percent and is now worth $2.4 trillion. In terms of geography, according to the 2011 BrandZ study, 19 of the Top 100 brands now originate in “BRICs” markets, versus only two in 2006.

“The importance of brand for global business success is becoming increasingly significant,” said David Roth at WPP. “In the last year, the global economy shifted from recovery to real growth, the combined value of all brands in the Top 100 ranking has risen by 64 percent since 2006 and is now worth $2.4 trillion. Strong brands, while not immune to the vicissitudes of the market, are more protected, prepared, resourceful and resilient.”

The BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands study, commissioned by WPP and conducted by Millward Brown Optimor, identifies and ranks the world’s most valuable 100 brands by their dollar value, an analysis based on financial data combined with consumer measures of brand equity.

The Most Valuable Global Brands 2011

Rank	Brand	Value in $ million	Brand value change from 2010
1	Apple	153,285	+ 84%
2	Google	111,498	- 2%
3	IBM	100,849	+ 17%
4	McDonald’s*	81,016	+ 23%
5	Microsoft	78,243	+2 %
6	Coca-Cola	73,752	+8 %
7	at&t	69,916	-
8	Marlboro	67,522	+18 %
9	China Mobile	57,326	+9 %
10	GE	50,318	+12 %

_{*The Brand Value of Coca-Cola includes Lites, Diets and Zero}

“Our brand valuations are a powerful measure of an organization’s ability to create real and lasting value for shareholders.” said Eileen Campbell, CEO of brand research company Millward Brown. “By nurturing its brand and constantly innovating, Apple is able to command a high price premium and weather economic turbulence, providing a global business success story that other brands can learn from.”

“Business leaders can embrace brand management as a critical competency for building long-term financial value,” she added. “Compared with an overall improvement of 13 percent in the world’s equity markets during 2010, the best brands grew their value 30 percent faster.
Other key findings highlighted in this year’s research report include:

• One in five brands is from the BRICs: This year, 19 brands come from emerging markets compared to two in 2006 and 13 in 2010. The growing presence of brands from BRICs in this global ranking highlights the expanding purchasing power of people in these countries. While many of these brands are buoyed by the size of their local customer base, many more now have international ambition including Petrobras in Brazil (No. 61 in the ranking with a brand value of $13.4 billion); ICICI Bank in India (No. 53 and worth $14.9 billion) and China’s largest search engine Baidu. Now listed on the NASDAQ index, Baidu has a brand value of $22.5 billion and moves up 46 places in the ranking to number 29. Despite these successes, consumers in the BRIC regions continue to favor Western brands. Louis Vuitton, for example, (for which Brazil is its second-largest market) benefited from the new energy and confidence in the BRICs region. Its 23 percent growth in brand value to $24.3 billion has helped this luxury retailer achieve 26th place in the ranking, a three-spot increase from 2010.

• Heritage brands stay relevant in a technology age: Coca-Cola (No. 6), GE (No. 10), IBM (No. 3) and McDonald’s (No. 4), stand out in this study of global brand strength as brands that have survived for more than 50 years. Leadership, strategy and tactics aside, what all of these companies have in common is their use of brand to remain relevant to consumers and drive global business success.

• Technology and telecom brands dominate the ranking: Technology brands, which make up one-third of the Top 100 brands, continue to demonstrate their relevance in our daily lives. While Apple leads the ranking, it is followed in second place by Google, with a brand value of $111.5 billion, and IBM in third place with a brand value of $100.9 billion. Facebook makes its debut in the Top 100 ranking this year at No. 35 with the highest increase in brand value, 246 percent, making the brand worth $19.1 billion. Online retailer Amazon also edged past Walmart to become the No. 1 retail brand and 14th overall, with a 37 percent rise in brand value to $37.6 billion.

• Fast food, luxury and technology brands led brand value appreciation: Each of the 13 market sectors covered in this study grew in value over the last year. Fast food led the sector growth (22 percent) followed by luxury (19 percent) and technology (18 percent). The oil and gas sector experienced the slowest rate of growth (1 percent).

• Tech and convergence create brand interdependencies: Brands are ever more dependent on their use of technology to win consumers’ hearts and minds. The brand values of Burberry, Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Coca-Cola all benefited from their use of technology for example by harnessing social media and apps. At the same time, the dependencies demonstrated in the physical world between applications, devices and operating platforms are creating similar branded interdependencies. Brands that are aware of the risks can leverage these associations to drive value and growth.

• Toyota reclaims position as most valuable car brand demonstrating the power of strong brands to recover from the most fundamental challenges to product efficacy and reputation. Toyota’s brand, which is rated by consumers as “great value,” rose 11 percent to $24.1 billion.

The BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands study is the only valuation in the world that takes into account what people think about the brands they buy alongside rigorous analysis of financial data, market valuations, analyst reports and risk profiles. The research report, which is available online, includes a ranking and analysis of the Top 10 most valuable brands for key regions of the world and 13 market sectors. Download the complete BrandZ ranking, including regional and category breakdowns. The rankings and a great deal more are also available as a free application for the iPhone, iPad, Nokia, BlackBerry and Android from www.brandz.com/mobile

Nokia has replaced its famous Nokia Sans font with a new “Nokia Pure” typeface as part of its effort to re-brand itself.  Nokia said on its blog that the “the letters [of the new font] flow into each other somewhat, creating the impression of forward movement.” The new typeface will be used throughout the user interface — in areas such as the user menu and dial pad — on future Nokia phones, although Nokia hasn’t provided official shots of it in use, just renders. It’s also unclear if Nokia will carry the new font over to its Windows Phone 7 devices, although we assume that it will. Nokia says to keep an eye out for the new typeface in its branding campaigns on billboards and on new devices in 2011.

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Who would have ever thought getting a Zune tattoo might be a bad idea? Microsoft is killing Zune, reports Windows watcher Paul Thurrott. Not the services, of course — they’ll live on in some way, shape or form. But the Zune brand and logo are not long for this world, Thurrott claims. The Microsoft expert thinks the brand will be phased out over a period of time, with the related services possibly rolling into the Windows Live brand, and he says the process has already begun. When confronted with this rumor, Microsoft’s response was anything but a denial: “We’re not ‘killing’ any of the Zune services/features in any way. Microsoft remains committed to providing a great music and video experience from Zune on platforms such as Xbox LIVE, Windows-based PCs, Zune devices and Windows Phone 7, as well as integration with Bing and MSN.”

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AT&T’s reputation has been dragged through the mud these past few years in no small part to its network issues, so it comes as little surprise that the company is all set to go through with a major rebranding effort. Based around the slogan “Rethink Possible” (Think Different much?), AT&T will position itself not as a communications giant but as purveyor of a progressive and innovative lifestyle. AT&T’s “Death Star” logo will remain, although the lowercase “at&t” will be dropped, while the overwhelming orange motif that assaults one’s senses will be discarded in favor of a wider spectrum of colors. The entire rebranding process will take a considerable amount of time given the sheer scope of the task, but let’s hope Luke Wilson’s reign of terror will be one of the first things to go.

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But U2 doesn’t love BlackBerry, nor give a shit about them. That’s the feeling I get after attending the kick-off concert for U2′s 360 U.S. tour. What’s incredible is that after thinking about this strange and odd pairing of two corporate brands, it makes less sense than I even previously thought. For starters, it’s a pretty large investment to be the title and only sponsor for a huge national or worldwide tour — major money. If we had to guess we’d say RIM paid a minimum of $7M and a maximum of $15M. What’s so unsettling is how disconnected RIM was from the event. Sure, there were a couple banners strewn about Soldier Field, but no one noticed. And the folks that did notice didn’t care. Instead of using this opportunity to push their brand forward, it almost seems like just a second thought to throw some quick marketing dollars to try act like your company is doing something in the consumer and “cool” department.

There are really two main reasons to do something as big as this: one is to get a huge return on your investment. If RIM spends $10M (we averaged our guessed figures) and signs up a boatload of new BlackBerry subscribers (or even just does upgrades and sells hardware) there’s a good chance they’d quickly make that $10M back plus more (profit). The second reason which is more likely for a company as large as RIM, is just to have brand presence, reinforce your identity to consumers, and possibly reach a new demographic that you can later market and sell to. But again, I saw enough BlackBerrys at the event. More iPhones than BlackBerrys (everyone was taking videos on their iPhones so apparently everyone in America bought the new 3GS), but still, a shitload of BlackBerrys. And no one is switching to a friggin’ BlackBerry from an iPhone just because they saw a couple dusty BlackBerry banners at a U2 concert.

So I ask again, what’s the purpose of sponsoring a tour like this if you’re going to throw up some lame signage and call it a day? Seriously, there wasn’t a single BlackBerry logo on the main screen on the stage, nothing on the video monitor — zilch. There was a dingy 5×5 ft booth that looked like a hot dog stand converted into something with a BlackBerry logo right outside the stadium and that’s about it. Did Live Nation tell you to bugger off? Did U2 say they didn’t want a brand to be integrated into their show anymore than you were already? If so, this is a pretty shitty investment and makes RIM seem desperate to just find something to get involved with to try and hold on to what’s left of the hype (which is quickly, quickly fading) surrounding the BlackBerry Tour launch. Sure it’s a nice tie-in for upcoming product launches like the Storm 2 and BlackBerry 9700, but there’s zero involvement.

Why didn’t RIM have 10 RIM reps at the venue demoing products an hour before the concert started? Doing giveaways? Getting people excited or at least engaged? Why couldn’t you sell devices and do activations at every stadium/arena on the tour and clean up? You couldn’t even do some RIM accessories with U2 logos on them? Seriously? Do you understand how many drunk 50-year-olds would buy BlackBerry/U2 leather holsters, skins, etc. for their devices at the concert? This might go back to what they could and could not do in terms of licensing agreements, merchandising restrictions, promotional and marketing guidelines, but if so, it was a pretty stupid idea to half-ass something that could have been a major coup for your company and brand in a time when it’s much needed.

For $10M, RIM could have set up shop at 50 college campuses across the country and done hands-on sessions with students showing off how cool a BlackBerry can be compared to Apple’s iPhone. “Look, you can get Twitter on your BlackBerry and you can stream music even while the application is in the background!” or maybe “look how fantastically it integrates with your college email account.” “Look, even Yelp! is on the BlackBerry now and it will even show you where the best place to get chicken wings at 3AM is.” and the obvious sexy angle: “you guys use Macs? No problem. We just launched BlackBerry Desktop for Mac which will sync all of your stuff over so you can use all of your Mac applications you’re used to using. Have fun — import your photos into iPhoto and enjoy the fact that we geo-tag your pictures automatically!”

For $10M RIM could have made a meaningful commercial that demonstrated why a BlackBerry is better than an iPhone instead of Bono on LSD channeling his previous commercial he did for the iPod with Apple. For $10M RIM could have launched an actual developer program where they, you know, focus on making software development easier and better? Maybe have real support and real documentation that makes sense? All RIM has to do is copy Apple and for the most part, they’ll win. Yet they refuse. They start things and never finish them and their follow-through is horrible just like how this U2 sponsorship turned out to be. I was actually a tad bit excited, or at least a little bit hype. “BlackBerry sponsored this entire thing? That’s kind of cool.” Then all I saw were a couple banners like the one above and everyone pleasantly using iPhones. And some dude buying nachos.

Interesting, very interesting. We are all familiar with the branding nightmare that is Nokia’s higher-end line of phones. Eseries for business, Nseries for fun — but even fanboy blogs seem to have a tough time remembering how to spell the brands. E-series, N Series, E-Series, n series and so on. These lines have been around for long enough however, that Nokia is basically stuck with them at this point. As a matter of fact, it may even be expanding. By way of the Finnish blog Puhelinvertailu, it looks like Nokia filed a trademark application for “Cseries” back in April of this year. The new series, assuming Nokia does in fact get the trademark and make use of this new branding, could be for a number of things. We could see some of Nokia’s numbered phones, maybe the Symbian-powered models, move over to Cseries. Or perhaps we’ll see an entirely new line of Maemo devices bearing the Cseries name; we never did understand why Nokia slapped an “N” on its last two tablets. Speculation aside for the time being, the “E” in “Eseries” stands for Enterprise and the “N” in “Nseries” stand for, umm, eNtertainment? Not enterprise? Nokia? Whatever — the question here is what will the “C” in “Cseries” stand for if Nokia does in fact bring it to market?

[Via Puhelinvertailu]

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When it comes to branding, marketing, advertising, PR and the general concepts surrounding efforts to sell stuff, Apple is one of the best in the business — hands down. Love Apple products or hate them, there’s really no question it knows how design an attractive product and make it even more attractive using marcom. As such, the company is always meticulous with the messages it delivers, the wording it chooses and the quality of its marketing/advertising — well, almost always.

Its latest product, the iPhone 3GS, is a smash hit. It launched this past Friday in fewer countries than the iPhone 3G did last year and still managed to sell over a million handsets in its opening weekend — more units than its predecessor in fact. Remarkable. There is a major fault in Apple’s new handset however, that we likely wouldn’t have seen under Stevo’s watch: the branding. Yes, we’re sure Jobs played a major role in naming the device and we can’t believe “3GS” is what the crew in Cupertino landed on but considering how peculiar and unfriendly to search engines the name is, one would think the company would take particular care in referring to the handset. Nope. According to Apple, the official name of its new handset is “iPhone 3GS”. Fair enough. Take a look at Apple’s website at the time of this writing however, and you’ll find no less than a hundred references to the “iPhone 3G S” — with a space between the “3G” and the “S”. Crazy. This is also how the handset was presented when it was introduced earlier this month: “3G S”.

To be honest, we can’t remember ever having seen Apple fail so massively in this department. It may seem trivial but companies take branding extremely seriously for several reasons and all of these reasons play key roles in the marketing/sales processes. Apple is cleaning up its site and changing “3G S” to “3GS” but even now there are still a few omissions. The screen cap above was taken this morning and it shows less than a quarter of a page with four mistakes alone.

So welcome back, Mr. Jobs. Time to get to work.