American’s Most Efficiently Run Brands

The media is filled with brand lists, most of them which are based on research which estimates the value of a given brand. It is hard to connect these valuations to the sales and profits of the companies which own them. Marlboro is one of the most valuable brands in the world–worth perhaps $50 billion. Does it bring in that much money for its parent companies Altria MO and Philip Morris PM? The combined revenue of the two companies is more than $80 billion, so the answer is almost certainly affirmative since Marlboro is the best-selling product for both. Marlboro is a 100-year old brand and produces tens of billion of dollars in sales each year. That would argue for the brand value of the cigarette to be higher than $50 billion. But experts sayit is not. Google GOOG is another brand which is at the top of most brand valuation lists, and is sometimes given a value of $100 billion. Google’s market capitalization is $150 billion, but annual revenue is only $25 billion. Is the brand value based on sales, or the value of the company in the stock market? To read the rest, head over to 247WallSt.com Read more: American’s Most Efficiently Run Brands - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2010/09/02/americans-most-efficiently-run-brands/#ixzz0yT8qTDZQ