The 10 Brands That Lost The Most Value This Year

Once again, Coca-Cola was ranked the most valuable brand in the world, according to Interbrand, one of the nation’s top global brands experts.

Apple, to the surprise of none, was very close behind. Considering the consumer electronics company’s growth, it will easily eclipse the long-time number one brand by next year.

See which brands tanked >

While some of the biggest brands—including Amazon.com, Samsung and Oracle – have grown their value by more than 20% since last year’s report, others have fallen precipitously. Goldman Sachs, still one of the world’s most valuable financial brands, lost 16% of its brand’s worth. BlackBerry lost nearly 40% of its brand’s value. Based on the Interbrand report, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed Goldman, BlackBerry and eight other brands that lost the most value compared to last year.

Several industries have grown substantially in the past year. Auto companies, still recovering from the recession, saw major gains in their brand value since the last report. Nine of the 11 large European, Japanese and American automakers on 100 most valuable brands list grew in value last year, up a combined 12%.

Together, technology firms measured by Interbrand, led by Apple’s stunning 129% brand value growth, have grown by nearly 27% to more than $320 billion in total value.

However, the performance of brands within the technology sector has been much more mixed than the auto industry. While Apple and Samsung are among the most improved brands compared to last year, the sector also has some that are the worst-performing—and that is not a coincidence. As Apple and Samsung have redefined the mobile phone market, brands like BlackBerry and Nokia are being left behind.

Brands are successful when they are able to redefine a market, Interbrand CEO, New York, Josh Feldmeth told 24/7 Wall St. He gives the example of Apple, which took the mobile phone market and turned it into an ecosystem in which consumers buy games, listen to music and browse the Internet on a single device.

When comparing the brands that are doing well to the brands that are struggling, Feldmeth said, the brands that have done well have been able to predict what people want in a market. “Strong brands anticipate needs and transform desires,” Feldmeth said.

Some sectors are struggling across the board, arguably none more so than financial services. In Interbrand’s 2008 report, the combined brand value of the financial services industry was more than to $130 billion. As of the 2012, brand value had fallen to just over $91 billion. The damage to banks is partially a result of negative press generated from the recession, but also in part because they are performing poorly as a business.

Feldmeth explained that a large part of Interbrand’s valuation comes from the performance of the company, and that has affected the Citigroup, J.P Morgan and some of the other large banks. “If you can’t make money with a brand, it’s not really valuable,” Feldmeth said.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed Interbrand’s Top 100 Global Brands 2012 report, which measures the period of July 1, 2011, to June 30, 2012. Included in the valuation of each brand were the strength of the brand, the financial success of the parent company and the extent to which the brand plays a role in that company’s success. 24/7 Wall St. also obtained the financials of each brand’s parent company, including market share and company revenue.

These are the brands that lost the most value over the past year.

#10: Dell

Pct. brand value decline: 9%
Brand value: $7.6 billion (49th)
Parent company: Dell Inc.
1-yr. change in revenue: -2.36%
Industry: Technology

Dell’s brand has consistently lost value over the past four years as the company has moved away from PC sales towards IT services, a strategy Hewlett-Packard Co. also has attempted with limited success. For 2012, Interbrand values Dell’s brand at $7.6 billion, the lowest it has been in the past 11 years.

Although it remains one of the world’s largest PC makers, this year’s second-quarter PC shipments declined by 11.5% from a year before. The company also has struggled to create a viable smartphone, and it stopped selling the devices in the United States in March.

Despite recent problems, Dell’s last annual report indicated that in fiscal 2012 “enterprise solutions and services business, a bellwether for execution of [the company’s] strategy, grew 6% to $18.6 billion, and was nearly 30% of revenue and almost half of gross margin dollars."

#9: Thomson Reuters

Pct. brand value decline: 11%
Brand value: $8.4 billion (44th)
Parent company: Thomson Reuters Corp.
1-yr. change in revenue: 1.5%
Industry: Business services

While Thomson Reuters used to be the dominant player in the financial terminal market, competitor Bloomberg has gained market share in recent years and has become the terminal to have on Wall St. Burton-Taylor International Consulting managing partner Douglas Taylor told Canadian Business in February that Bloomberg’s market share has finally caught up with Thomson Reuter’s, with each holding about a third.

“It’s perceived as the Mercedes product,” Taylor said of the Bloomberg terminal. “If you have a Bloomberg, you have the ultimate terminal.” The struggle to fend off challenges from Bloomberg and others led the Thomson family, the company’s controlling shareholders, to remove Tom Glocer as CEO in December.

But despite the company allowing the competition to gain on it, Interbrand notes that Thomson Reuters continues to lead its respective market in other key areas, such as legal research databases for law firms and the Checkpoint database for tax and accounting professionals.

#8: Honda

Pct. brand value decline: 11% (tied for 9th)
Brand value: $17.3 billion (21st)
Parent company: Honda Motor Company Ltd. (NYSE: HMC)
1-yr. change in revenue: 4.6%
Industry: Automotive

The brand valuation of the worldwide automotive industry has begun to recover after a major dip during the recession, rising from a total of about $128 billion in 2010 to over $160 billion in 2012. The value of all of the top car brands measured by Interbrand increased since the 2011 report, except for Honda and Kia. Honda’s brand value in 2012 of $17.3 billion—which is $13 billion less than its Japanese rival Toyota Motor Corp.’s brand—is the lowest since 2006.

Some events that have impacted the company were beyond its control, including the Japanese earthquake, which affected its manufacturing, and floods in Thailand that hurt some of its suppliers. The carmaker, though, is responsible to some of the damage to its brand. Honda has issued multiple major recalls in recent years, including one for more than 570,000 Honda-branded vehicles earlier this week.

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