Brands are ranked in several ways. The brand-ranking business has become an industry of its own. Research firms charge companies money to help them to increase their brand values. These brand research operations always have a “secret sauce.” Each claims that its secrets make its brand rank the best among rivals. (These are 25 brands customers are abandoning.)
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The latest brand research comes from RepTrack. Like other lists, it covers the top 100. Its secret sauce does not include dollar valuation. Rather, “The Global RepTrak 100 (GRT) is the definitive ranking and analysis of corporate reputation for the world’s leading companies. It showcases how people feel, think, and act towards companies globally.” It measures sentiment data from millions of online sources and mainstream media data and then runs it through an AI screen. The process is vague.

The list is topped by LEGO, the toy brand. Every other brand evaluation list puts big tech companies like Apple, Google and Amazon at the top.

The balance of the top five companies based on global reputation is also unexpected. They include Bosch, Rolls Royce, Harley-Davidson and Canon. Several of these are attached to fairly small companies. Surprisingly, Google holds the 31st place and Apple is 58th.

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LEGO has done remarkably well in the toy business. The Danish company has been in business for 90 years. It recently became the world’s largest toy company, with sales of $2.1 billion.

One extraordinary thing about LEGO is that one product makes up almost all of its revenue. This is a set of interlocking plastic blocks.

Unlike most companies on the best or most valuable brands list, LEGO is old and its product line is simple.

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