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.”

随着各大公司面临着一个日益全球化、竞争日益激烈的市场，品牌正变得前所未有的重要。

Millward Brown Optimor日前发布了第三份全球百强品牌年度排名，其部分依据就是WPP的Brandz数据库，其中涵盖5万多个品牌。排名发现，全球百强品牌的总价值约为1.9万亿美元，相当于意大利的国内生产总值(GDP)。

“品牌正变得越来越重要，”Millward Brown Optimor首席执行官乔安娜?塞登(Joanna Seddon)表示。“科技品牌今年表现很好，谷歌(Google)和苹果(Apple)均位列前10。谷歌已经连续两年被评为世界最具价值品牌。”

“世界上一些非常成功的公司之所以成功，是因为他们在发展业务的同时也不忘建设自己的品牌，”她补充道。“移动运营商Orange就是一个很好的例子。他们甚至在业务开展前就开始投资于自己的品牌。”

不过，Millward Brown Optimor也一直在评估品牌对股市表现的影响——人们目前对这个领域的研究很少。它已经建立了一个“Brandz”投资组合，包括了全球百强品牌中所有能投资的品牌。

这些品牌必须是有流通股的股份有限公司。该投资组合的收益是用美元来计算的，因此会受到汇率的影响。

Brandz组合以标准普尔500指数(S&P 500)为参照，因为这个指数与该组合的构成最接近：大型股和小型股的比例、行业和国别构成等。

“我们没有使用富时指数(FTSE)，因为世界顶级品牌中有8个在美国，如果参照富时指数，可能会受到汇率变化的扭曲，”Millward Brown Optimor高级咨询师马尔特?努恩(Malte Nuhn)表示。

组合刚建立时，不是所有公司都接收到了同等的投资。品牌较强的公司以及品牌业务占集团业务很大比例的公司收到的投资较多。

Millward Brown Optimor还抽出一些较强的品牌，组建了另外一个组合——这些品牌的品牌贡献率超过30%（在排名中，品牌贡献率被指数化，实际上它们是百分比）。这个“强大品牌”投资组合包含了全球百强品牌中约三分之二的品牌。

截至4月3日，标准普尔指数在过去12个月内上涨了3%，Brandz Top 100投资组合上涨了15%，而强大品牌组合上涨了22%。

截至去年12月31日，标准普尔指数在去年上涨了11%，Brandz Top 100投资组合上涨了25%，而强大品牌组合上涨了34%。

Millward Brown Optimor的研究显示，具有强大品牌价值的公司和产品能明显获得较高的回报，无论是在牛市还是在最近的市场低迷时期。

朗涛策略设计顾问公司(Landor Associates)首席营销官海斯?罗思(Hayes Roth)表示：“强大品牌价值和强劲股票表现之间存在显著的一致性。”

“品牌力量与股市表现坚挺有很大联系，平均来说，品牌价值可以为一个公司增加逾25%的市值——具体数字可能因公司类型而有所不同。”

塞登相信，这种表现背后的原因之一是：强大的品牌更容易提高收入和市场份额，因为人们更容易受这些产品吸引，更容易对品牌保持忠诚。

“你还有可能获得价格溢价，”努恩补充道。“苹果产品的售价比竞争对手的同类产品要高约20%，这会影响利润率。”

但是，也有很多大品牌摔跟头的例子。

“看看星巴克(Starbucks)。建立品牌时，你可以做得很棒，什么事都做得很对，但你迅速扩展全球业务时，一些最初造就品牌的东西就很难保持了。他们过分扩张了，”罗思称。

“世界的美国化曾对麦当劳(McDonald's)造成一些影响，但他们卷土重来，自我改造，因此他们的品牌排名已经上升，”他补充道

研究表明，强大的品牌不但能影响需求，也能影响供应链。例如，如果你拥有高盛(Goldman Sachs)或微软(Microsoft)这样的强大品牌，就很容易吸引商学院的尖子生。

“你可以支付较低的薪水，他们也会呆得更长；你可以从供应商那儿得到更优惠的条件。如果一个知名品牌投资于新产品或新市场，往往可以找到别人替你承担投资风险，”塞登表示。

目前还没有一个全球品牌基金，但Millward Brown Optimor称，它的研究已激起基金公司的极大兴趣，提议创立一个全球品牌基金，用该研究的数据作为挑选股票的依据。

罗思表示：“看看Optimor的研究报告。如果你选了前五名（的股票），你的收益一定不错。百强品牌中，股票也有涨落，因为影响股价的还有其它因素。

“但强大的品牌能带你度过难关，获得更好的结果。全球品牌基金将是一个长期投资，它应该比较像蓝筹股基金。如果有这样一个基金，应该会很棒。肯定会引起极大兴趣。”