The Top 100 Most Powerful Brands of 2016

Top 100 Most Powerful Brands of 2016

Each year, Tenet Partners analyzes the data in the CoreBrand® Index (CBI) to determine the Top 100 Most Powerful Brands based on high awareness and positive brand perceptions. 2016 marks the ninth year of the report. For a comprehensive look at this year’s findings, including sector trends and analysis, download the full report.

Invest in your brand. Invest in your future.

Invest in Your Brand. Invest in Your Future.

Understanding Brand Value Creation

A company’s brand is one of their most, if not the most, valuable asset they have. As an emerging example, companies such as Uber and Airbnb depend on the power of the brand to drive their business growth. To many, the brand is the company itself (Coke, GE, Nike, Mastercard), as it represents the myriad factors that contribute to its success. A brand is driven by the perceptions customers have adopted based upon its reputation, its favorability, and its perceived value. And these factors are driven by most everything a company does from the story it tells to the core values that define it, from the way it manages its daily operations to its ability to live up to its promises, from how it positions itself in the marketplace to how it meets consumer expectations – the very essence of a company becomes inextricably bound to its brand.

When a company gets it right—trust, affinity and allegiance are born— critical factors in driving favorable consumer and investor behavior.

When a company understands the role the brand plays in driving its success, it is better positioned to target and remedy weaknesses, and maximizes brand-building opportunities. At Tenet Partners, we’re able to derive the intelligence and insights necessary to measure a brand’s value with a precision that allows a company to shape it, manage it, increase its value and gain the competitive advantage over time.

The most powerful brands of 2016 accomplish this by:

  • Aligning business strategy, brand innovation and marketing efforts.
  • Creating brand clarity through a well-defined ‘story’ throughout all communication channels —consumers, employees and investors.
  • Possessing an unwavering commitment to delivering consistent results for customers over time.

Tenet Partners has developed a standard set of CoreBrand metrics and reporting methods that, in combination with our custom research and advisory services, allow us to more precisely identify specific strategies to increase a company’s ‘brand power.’

The data we use to create Tenet’s Top 100 report for 2016 is collected throughout the 2015 calendar year, and is derived from our CoreBrand Index. Insights are gleaned from surveying and analyzing approximately 1,000 different companies across 50 industries each year for over 25 years.

Tenet is the only company that provides digital access to consistent, highly stable, tracking data that spans decades. Quantitative research from 10,000 consumers and business decision makers measure brand awareness (Familiarity) and perception (Favorability) for each company in our index, which is then combined to calculate a company’s brand strength, or, as we call it – “BrandPower.”

Tenet’s Top 100 Most Powerful Brands of 2016 highlights the strongest brands we’ve tracked throughout the year. The companies that make it on our list have captured high awareness (Familiarity), and positive brand perception (Favorability) in the marketplace. Objective measurements of these core brand metrics often provide meaningful indicators of a company’s management effectiveness, and therefore financial performance.

It is important to note that Tenet’s CoreBrand Index is not a brand value ranking. Though brand valuation is an important metric for ongoing management of a brand; looking solely at brand valuation cannot illustrate the effectiveness of brand management. Many well-managed brands can have a lower brand value for a number of reasons. To this end, the CoreBrand Index is a reflection of excellent brand management.

Our report findings are based upon a full calendar year of data to support our brand rankings, which include over 10,000 interviews with influential decision makers with broad reach. Survey participants hail from the top 20% of corporations in the United States (based on revenue), are carefully screened, and represent investment communities, potential business partners and business customers and highly engaged consumers.

A message from our CEO and Chairman

A message from our CEO and Chairman

Welcome to Tenet’s 2016 Top 100 Most Powerful Brands report.

The contribution that ‘intangible assets’ make to the US economy is undeniable. In fact, recent studies show that roughly 84% of the value of the S&P 500 is made up of intangible assets including corporate brands.*

Although a company’s brand is considered an intangible asset with significant value, the value of a brand is not calculated on the corporate balance sheet until it is bought or sold. Most companies will at some point be acquired, merge, or buy other companies – but until one these events happen, brands are not managed as a balance sheet asset. Further to this point, leading companies invest significant resources in their brand-building initiatives, but management and investors don’t have a clear view into the brand and the true impact it has on the company’s value. Without question, management, boards and investors must understand how brand performance is linked to business performance and value creation.

To help companies determine their corporate brand performance and brand value, Tenet’s CoreBrand® Index (CBI) was created to answer a single question – “What does a brand contribute to a company’s value?” Today, our CoreBrand Index is the only research methodology and analytical model that yields data from a continuous examination of a company’s brand and the factors that contribute to enterprise value.

Every year of over 25 consecutive years, we track nearly 1,000 different companies across 50 industries to develop the benchmark data for our CoreBrand Index. It is from this data that we derive the findings for our annual Top 100 Most Powerful Brands report. 2016 marks our 9th annual publication of this ranking.

This also marks a milestone for Tenet and the world of branding and marketing. CoreBrand Data provides the foundation for the first ever investable Index that identifies stocks that are exhibiting a discount of brand and intangible asset value to market capitalization. Developed by BrandTransact® Worldwide, the launch of the BrandTransact® 50 (BTW50) is a watershed moment, and we are proud to be a key partner in helping investors tap into unrealized value of companies whose share value has not yet been fully recognized by the US markets. Over a five-year period through August 2015, the BTW50 Index outperformed the S&P 500 by over 500 basis points.

We hope this report and the case studies within provide a deeper understanding of key trends for individual companies, for different sectors, and for the market as a whole. Ultimately our mission is to help executives and investors gain the knowledge they need to unlock the power of a company’s most important asset – their brand.

Congratulations to the Top 100 Most Powerful Brands of 2016.

Hampton Bridwell
CEO, Tenet Partners

James Gregory
Chairman, Tenet Partners

* (Source: Ocean Tomo, LLC)

Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Key takeaways for 2016

Press Room

The Top 100 Most Powerful Brands of 2016

Read the press release.

Top 100 Badge

If your company is ranked amongst the Top 100 Most Powerful Brands of 2016, and would like to receive a congratulatory badge to post on your website or share on social media, please contact Russ Napolitano.

Infographics & Charts

The Most Powerful Brands by Sector
View the breakdown of the Top 100 Most Powerful Brands by Sector.

Inside BrandPower
What can a company’s BrandPower, Familiarity and Favorability reveal about a brand?

Key Sector Trends
BrandPower Sector Trends 2012-2016.

New to the Top 100 Ranking
Five new brands make it onto the 2016 Top 100.

Technology Top Risers
See which tech brands jumped the most in BrandPower year-over-year.

The Top Brands by Brand Value
The 2016 Most Powerful Brands ranked in order of their brand value.

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