How Netflix Made the List of 100 Top Brands

September 25, 2017 by Paul Ausick

Once a brand has been established as one of the world’s best, dislodging it becomes something akin to Sisyphean. Of the top 100 brands in this year’s ranking by Interbrand, there are only three new entrants: Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), Salesforce.com Inc. (NYSE: CRM) and Ferrari N.V. (NYSE: RACE).

Ferrari may be one of the most recognizable brands on the planet, and its brand value of $4.9 billion represents about 23% of the company’s market cap. That’s on a par with top-ranked Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), which sports a brand value of $184 billion, also equal to 23% of the company’s market cap. Ferrari’s brand value puts it at number 88 on the Interbrand list.

Salesforce.com, with a market cap of $68.2 billion, has a brand value of $5.2 billion, or 7.6% of its market cap. The company ranked 84th in the Interbrand study.

Netflix’s brand value of $5.6 billion ranks 78th on the Interbrand list, the highest of the three new entrants. With a market cap of $80.9 billion, the company’s brand value accounts for 6.4% of its market cap. Although the proportion of brand value to market cap appears low, the Netflix brand punches well above its weight.

Among a group of broadcast networks and to competing subscription video on-demand offerings — Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) Prime video on-demand and Hulu — Netflix’s brand recognition (65%) was more than three times higher than Amazon’s (20%) and more than four times higher than Hulu’s (15%) among millennials ages 18 to 26 in a recent survey conducted by ad agency Anatomy.

The same survey revealed that Netflix’s brand recognition among that demographic was more than double ABC’s, CBS’s or NBC’s (31%) and more than 1.5 times higher than Fox’s (40%).

In its report on the top 100 brands, Interbrand notes:

Enabled by technology, branded experiences are more powerful than ever. Technology has brought brands further into people’s lives. But don’t mistake proximity for engagement. Simply displaying ads on smartphones and social media or getting a voice assistant to broadcast your message isn’t a substitute for a real relationship.

The brand-building success of Netflix stems from its ability to associate its brand with a TV show and a major contributing factor to that is the company’s social media presence. When Anatomy reviewed posts from the brands included in their survey, Netflix published the three most engaging posts. One of these, a 55-second promotion for its “Death Note” show ginned up nearly 740,000 engagements.

Netflix has managed to build what Interbrand calls a “real relationship” with consumers.

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