• by Karl Greenberg , May 12, 2015

Coca-Cola is still on top in Tenet Partners’ yearly Top 100 Most Powerful Brands. The eighth annual ranking, Tenet Partners’ melding of data from its own CoreBrand Index (CBI) and awareness and brand perception data, or BrandPower, involves surveys of some 10,000 decision-makers in areas like purchasing, partnerships and investment at the top 20% of American corporations. These are companies with sales revenue of $50 million, up to several billion dollars. The firm cross-indexed survey-based measurers of familiarity and favorability with a company's performance to get a pulse on the extent to which the brand’s strength is responsible for its performance. 

Coca-Cola has held the top spot in the ranking since the firm launched the Top 100 study in 2008. The Atlanta-based beverage and CPG giant has top scores in overall reputation, and investment potential, although the study finds that perception of management slipped last year, “possibly due to a change of leadership at the company,” per the report. Until last year, Joe Tripodi was the charismatic CMO of Coke, and the force behind “Open Happiness” and some very clever mergers with companies like Honest Tea. Marcos de Quinto, from Coca-Cola’s Madrid office, replaced Tripodi after sagging Q3 results.

The rest of the top 10 are Hershey, Bayer, Walt Disney, Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, PepsiCo, American Express, and Harley-Davidson. 

Apple gets the nod for being the fastest-rising brand among the top 10. It was at 56th place in the ranking six years ago. It is now 5th, its ascendence due, per the study, to overall reputation and investment potential. Apple’s market cap reached $700 billion this past year on strong sales of iPhone 6. Microsoft is also back, thanks to its fiscal performance and new CEO in Satya Nadella. The company, which was out of the rankings last year, got a resurgence with Nadella driving mobile device strategy, including the acquisition of Nokia Device and Services. Also, last year Microsoft’s Office suite was offered on iPads, leading to 35 million downloads of its applications. 

The study says that five years ago the average BrandPower score for the top 100 brands was 60.7; this year the average is 63.1, led by consumer brands that reflect economic conditions and the business cycle, like automotive, and entertainment. The top retail brand is Barnes & Noble, rising to #29. By contrast, telecom has five brands in the top 100; consumer staples has 17; healthcare has four; and the industrial sector has 12. 

One would expect the automotive category to have several brands in the Brand Power top 100 list, due to strong sales over the past year. But safety issues have hurt all but one brand: Ford, which rose two places to #49 from #51. But it is well below BMW (#21), and below Honda, Toyota and Volvo, as well, all of which have dropped in the rankings. 

The brands that have moved up the fastest are Amazon, Intel, eBay, IBM., Wells Fargo, Google, Capital One, Clorox, Charles Schwab and Morgan Stanley. But none of them are in the top ten. Even Google, which is at 15th place. The biggest decliners are UPS, Walgreens, Yamaha, Western Union, Volvo, Eastman Kodak, New York Times Co., Honda, Nissan and Avon.