Michael Kors fall/winter 2014 ad campaign
The value of luxury brands has declined by $7 billion as maintaining exclusivity in a changing marketplace continues to be a struggle, according to findings by Millward Brown and WPP. Each year Millward Brown’s BrandZ report ranks the top 100 most valuable global brands across categories. Now in its tenth year, the study measures brand equity based on interviews with more than three million global consumers regarding consumer-facing and business-to-business brands. Consumer perception is key For BrandZ, Millward Brown analyses the financial and business performance of each brand on its list, using data from Bloomberg and Kantar Retail, to separate brand value in terms of driving business and shareholder value. Consumer perception is a key element of brands’ ranking and is determined by business performance, product delivery, clarity of positioning and leadership. Regional variations are taken into account, even for truly global brands such as the luxury houses included on this year’s listing, because brand contribution may differ significantly in different regions. Overall, technology is the fastest-growing category seeing an increase of 24 percent since the year-ago. Technology brands in the Top 100 are worth more than $1 trillion, nearly a third of the values of others on the list. Last year, Millward Brown found that British fashion label Burberry saw the largest growth in brand value among luxury brands. Luxury brands in general saw a 16 percent rise in brand value in 2014, compared to a 6 percent rise from the year-ago period. This was the steepest rise since the recession, with the combined brand value totaling $111 billion (see story). Check back May 28 for a deep dive into Millward Brown’s BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Brands Ranking for 2015 with a focus on luxury brands.