1、A New Decade of Possibility 3Best Global Brand 2020 Report Welcome to Best Global Brands 2020 see their consumption choices as votes of confidence. In some instances, organizations have more power than governments. At a time of deep reflection, the deepest form of relevance is increasingly being dri

2、ven by an uncompromising approach to fundamental human issues. Businesses that do not yet know, very specifically, which constituents they are systematically disadvantaging (and how) are at risk because in this hyper transparent world, the truth will out, and customers will “cancel”. PayPal is one o

3、f 2020s fastest risers, thanks to a radical application of its values and the trust those actions drive. In 2015 it decided to prioritise customers financial interests over its own higher revenue products. Despite an immediate stock market drop of 9% this move unleashed long-term growth. More recent

4、ly, Paypal has begun a program to redistribute capital from shareholders back to its lowest paid employees to ensure that everyone who works at PayPal can pay their bills. At a time of anxiety, theres not much that matters more. Microsoft has become a Top 3 Best Global Brand in 2020. Its CEO, Satya

5、Nadella, argues that in the future: “youll only have permission to profit as a business if you have the consent of customers.” In this we see that as people begin to hold business to account, choice is morphing into consent and brands are mediating the commitments a business makes to its constituent

6、s. In this mix brand is still a promise, but a promise of something deeper. Done right brands offer an equilibrium between business and customer. A set of shared values. Only 41 brands from our 2000 ranking remain on the table today. At one time, it was inconceivable that the DotCom Boomers Yahoo or

7、 AOL could fail, or that wed fall out of love with our Nokia handsets. But Google and Apple showed us a more compelling vision of the future and the rest is history. The lifespan of an organization was contracting before 2020; the pandemic and our collective awakening will only serve to accelerate t

8、hat trend. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Best Global Brand, Amazon, a business so large it is almost planetary, said: “I predict one day Amazon will fail. Amazon will go bankrupt. If you look at large companies, their lifespans tend to be 30-plus years, not a hundred-plus years.” While its hard to conceive of

9、a world in which the 100 Best Global Brands are no longer in our lives, we are undoubtedly at a point of divergence. A tipping point for many. Businesses that cannot serve citizens and brands that fail to gain the consent of customers will not stay ahead of our constantly renewing expectations and t

10、hey will fail. Climate change is the next apocalyptic event we face, so sustainability has to become a radical priority for organizations and brands. Microsoft has committed to being carbon negative (not just neutral) by 2030 (and Shell dropped off the Best Global Brands list this year). Change, onc

11、e again, is creating winners and losers and posing difficult choices. The real question may be, are you going to lead from the future or manage your decline? Charles Trevail Global Chief Executive Officer, Interbrand I n 2020, in a year of turbulence so seismic in scale and rapid in impact that the

12、world is still computing the effects, the aggregate value of the Top 100 Best Global Brands has grown by 9%. Their total brand value exceeds $2 trillion. As the pandemic and wider social outrage exposed fault lines in society and polarized people further; we see a similar divergence in the Best Glob

13、al Brands with 43% of brands growing, and 57% declining in value (vs 29% declining in 2019). This years winners are notable for particularly fast growth; the average increase amongst the top 3 brands alone was 50%. Its clear that in 2020, strong brands have become stronger as a result of the COVID e

14、ffect, which has accelerated digital transformation trends, such as cloud- based tech and streaming, across sectors, reinforcing the dominance of technology first brands. Crises recast the tacit contract between organizations and people. Certainly, we are seeing that now. As rising expectations diss

15、olve into anxiety, people are demanding more of the businesses they buy into. There is a growing sense of human disempowerment, a growing awareness of the power of brands, and consumers are beginning to 5Best Global Brand 2020 Report Beyond the storms: A New Decade of Possibility T he scale of the c

16、urrent social, economic and cultural turmoil seems unprecedented. But is it? Recovering from a widespread plague, in only a few decades between the late 15th and early 16th century, Europe went through a tumultuous transition, marked in the words of Oxford professor Ian Goldin “by historic milestone

17、s and discoveries, yes, but also wrenching upheaval Genius flourished under these conditions but risk flourished, too.” Gutenbergs invention of the printing press (1450s), Columbuss discovery of the New World (1492), Vasco da Gamas discovery of a sea route to Asia (1497), Copernicuss revolutionary t

18、heories of a sun centred cosmos (1510s) and world changing artistic, scientific and 7Best Global Brand 2020 Report technological achievements created immense opportunities but, equally, shattered structures, ignited divisions, and upended social order, leaving many behind. From these extreme tension

19、s, a new world emerged. History doesnt repeat itself, but it often rhymes. If we step back from the immediacy of the current crisis and place it in a broader context, we may find that we are, as Professor Goldin suggests, navigating the storms of new renaissance where once again human creativity, re

20、silience and achievements can create a new decade of possibility. There is, however, a major difference. What then took decades is now happening in years or even months. In a short period of time, outrage has sparked movements that are driving radical change around existential issues such as diversi

21、ty, equity, inclusion and climate change. Regimes are being challenged. The power and impact of social media is raising crucial questions. Economies have seen fortunes change in matters of weeks, and so have industries and businesses, with unexpected risers and illustrious fallers. And technology is

22、 changing every aspect of our lives: according to futurist Ray Kurtzweil, over the next one hundred years, we may be experiencing twenty thousand years of technological advancement, changing substantially the way we live. Accelerated by exponential transformation and immediate propagation, radical c

23、hange ideas, movements, technologies, growth, habits is simply happening at a speed and scale never seen before. As a result, what is relevant to us changes instantly and dramatically, and in ways that even the most forward-looking organisations can only partly predict or influence. Peoples expectat

24、ions have never been more unstable and unforeseeable. But change isnt just faster; its bumpier, too. What the increasingly frequent systemic shocks are doing is depriving us of our normal. Some call Covid-19 a black swan, but to others its what author Michele Wucker calls a grey rhino: an event that

25、 we saw coming but did not get ready for. Other grey rhinos loom ahead from new pandemics to natural disasters to political unrest. The world will not be just post-swan but, most importantly, pre-rhino. Covid-19s most enduring legacy will not be facemasks, graffiti and social distancing, but the end

26、 of continuity as the default assumption. And as murals in cities around the world suggest, perhaps there will be no going back to normal, because normal was the issue. As disruption replaces normality, we are discovering ourselves more vulnerable, restless and confused than we could have ever imagi

27、ned. Our rising expectations as customers are morphing into something deeper and more emotional. As we are all torn between the fear of being trampled by the next rhino and the hope of hopping on its back and seizing new opportunities, one prevailing sentiment will unite us all well beyond the curre

28、nt crisis: Anxiety. A constant tension between fear and hope. Over the next 100 years we may be experiencing twenty thousand years of technological advancement, changing substantially the way we live. 9Best Global Brand 2020 Report So as uncertainty fuels fear, how can brands build economic resilien

29、ce and individual confidence? In conducting this years study of the one hundred most valuable global brands, one question emerged as the keystone of our analysis: what is brands role in an anxious world? With an aggregate value of over 2 trillion dollars, there can be no doubt that these brands are

30、now a force of macroeconomic magnitude and, most importantly, influence. Their policies and actions have an impact no longer just on individual choices and nations prosperity, but on our interconnected global society and our planet, too. So as uncertainty fuels fear, how can brands build economic re

31、silience and individual confidence? Our analysis revealed a chain of three fundamental priorities. As uncertainty fuels our fear, it takes courageous leadership to create hope. Never like today, we must be driven by perspective, not immediacy. We need the worlds most influential brands to lead from

32、the future, setting a worthy purpose and a powerful ambition beyond turbulence and chaos. Leadership requires engagement. At times of crisis, brave leaders dont just commit to a worthy purpose; they inspire others to join them on a shared journey. Brands that thrive in an anxious world foster dialog

33、ue, invite co-operation and create a following. They do this through iconic moves that capture the imagination and solve unmet needs, as well as small acts that show vulnerability, gratitude and empathy. Ultimately, it takes brave leadership and powerful engagement to find relevance. Encapsulating a

34、nd anticipating the zeitgeist, great brands lift us from indifference and make our choices meaningful. They count us as constituents, not just consumers. They become anchor points at times of volatility, sparking desire, delivering utility and building trust. Leadership, engagement and relevance rev

35、erberate across our conversations with business leaders across all geographies, sizes and industries, as well as in our ongoing dialogue with their customers. They are the keys to unlock results in the current crisis, building customer confidence and business resilience. We are only beginning to gra

36、sp the implications of this inflection point, and no organisation will be untouched. For many businesses, what looms ahead is a quest for survival and recovery. For others, this is the time to imagine radically new contracts with their constituents. Abraham Lincoln is credited with saying that the b

37、est way to predict the future is to create it. By setting out powerful ambitions and pursuing them with courage and conscience, brands can help us lift our heads, make sense of chaos, and see beyond it, championing a new age of possibility. 11Best Global Brand 2020 Report 01. Leadership: a flag in t

38、he future U ncertainty makes us instinctively crunch into immediacy; a fight-or- flight survival mode that deprives us of a broader, farther reaching view. The present becomes all-consuming, and the future feels impenetrable and threatening. We need leadership. To thrive in an anxious world, organis

39、ations must know the way, show the way and go the way. This require leaders with the ability step back and see beyond the chaos, rather than be blinded by it and navigate the changing context with direction, alignment, agility and empathy. It all starts with direction. These organisations start from

40、 their desired future and work backwards, framing each immediate challenge as a step on the road toward that future. Their brands are consistently shaped by aspiration, rather than trauma. 13Best Global Brand 2020 Report Many of the fastest growing global brands do this by increasingly intertwining

41、three aspects: a long term human truth; a nearer term business ambition; and constant, agile action. Lets start with the long term. Organisations that thrive in uncertainty are inspired and driven by a clear purpose: a stance about a deep human truth uniting constituents that acts as a north star. A

42、s Wharton Professor Americus Reed II notes, some of todays most effective brands are activists that happen to make products. They then activate that purpose by distilling it into a sharp, timebound ambition a proximate, measurable objective that everyone in the organisation knows they can potentiall

43、y achieve within a given timeframe. Lastly, they navigate towards that ambition by making moves that accelerate the business towards it by changing the way people see the brand and, often, the category. By setting a north star purpose, translating it into a proximate ambition, and making ongoing mov

44、es to achieve that ambition, the worlds fastest growing businesses are effectively using their brands as flags planted in the future and creating a journey that people within and outside of the business want to be part of. In July Tesla (BV $12,785bn) overtook Toyota (BV $51,595bn; -8% YOY) as the w

45、orlds most valuable car maker never mind that it made 370,000 cars against Toyotas 10m and a fraction of its revenues. There are industrial drivers behind this performance most notably, a significant edge in battery technology and software. But these are the results of coherent moves innovation, lau

46、nches, adjacencies and, yes, buzz inspired by a clear direction: a clear purpose translated into subsequent industrial targets. Teslas brand its flag in the future hasnt only driven demand and advocacy from its inception. It has also built enormous liquidity by attracting and retaining a loyal follo

47、wing of retail investors. Ultimately, it has also forced change in one of the most inertial and largest scale industries. Tesla is highly likely to be facing increasing competition going forward, but stands as an exceptional case of leading from the future with absolute clarity of direction. Fast gr

48、owing brands are remarkable in their ability to combine that fixed long term vision with flexible short term action: direction and agility. As the customer mindset and competitive threats change on an ongoing basis, the traditional paradigm of research, brand positioning and communications is outdat

49、ed replaced by a clear ambition driving fast- paced, highly targeted moves borne of experimentation. “Listen more, talk less and be decisive when the time comes.” Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO 15Best Global Brand 2020 Report When agility as a mindset combines with converging technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics, sparks fly. Amazon (BV $200,667bn; + 60% YOY), who invested over $28 billion on R +53%) exceptional transformation over the past six years has seen sources of revenue shift dramatically to a combinati