“What’s in a name?” Juliet asks in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” implying a name means nothing. But marketing professionals and companies would strongly disagree with Juliet’s premise, asserting that brand names and brands certainly have value.

Companies spend a great deal of time, effort and money to create, curate, and protect their brand identities, especially global multinationals with consumer-facing or commercial products and services.

To identify the top 50 most valuable global brands, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed Global 500 2019, the annual report on the world’s most valuable and strongest brands, published by British business strategy consultant Brand Finance. Brand value is determined by reviewing a range of factors, including how much it would cost to license a particular brand in a given industry and calculating how much of a parent company’s revenue comes from a particular brand. Past financial performance and future forecasts are also considered.

The top 50 include 13 tech company brands, five car brands, and five telecommunications brands. Several of these companies have built their brands’ values through groundbreaking product development. In fact, many companies on this list rank among the world’s 50 most innovative companies.

Brand recognition and value can also grow over time, and a brand on this list has one of the oldest corporate logos in the world.

Because this is a list of global brands, not all of them will be familiar to the typical Western consumer. Just over half of these brands (26) are owned by U.S. companies, while 15 are Chinese enterprises.

Click here to see the 50 most valuable brands in the world
Click here to read our methodology