Apple

Return to 2015 Ranking

“If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will,” Steve Jobs once notably remarked. In the past year, Apple has again held true to this belief, as it continues to outdo its existing products and launch all-new ones. The Apple ecosystem expanded exponentially throughout 2015, along with its customer-centric focus, as reflected by a 43 percent rise in brand value this year. 

Apple’s ambition to be a part of all facets of people’s lives has left few industries untouched—it's created a huge ecosystem that keeps players big and small vying for access. Apple continues to cultivate partnerships—particularly in the auto industry, for example, with its connected CarPlay system—while staying ahead of the pack. Its next (literal) big thing is Project Titan: a fully connected electric car, rumored for release in 2019.   

The company doesn’t rest on its laurels when it comes to new products and innovation—its proved prolific with a list of releases that include Apple Proactive, Apple Pay, Home app, iOS9, OS X El Capitan, Apple Watch, Live TV, 3D Touch, iPhone financing, and Apple Music. The new tvOS iteration of Apple TV stands to change how people consume content, and Apple is exploring the possibility of creating original programming. Its personal assistant, Siri—which continues to rival Facebook’s M and Microsoft’s Cortana—is about to acquire a sixth sense: Apple Proactive will deliver super-personalized services, tailored to users’ daily lives.

Apple's relentless focus on the user is embedded in its very core, while the brand's design sensibility runs across every touchpoint. People have become central to much of its marketing, as Apple weaves its products into users' personal stories, exemplified by Apple Music’s “Instant Boyfriend Mixtape” commercial spot that aired during the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards. In its recent iPhone spots, “Loved” and “Hardware & Software,” Apple speaks directly about the merits of its product and its benefits to the user, claiming “If it's not an iPhone, it's not an iPhone.” Apple Stores will be getting a radical overhaul under the direction of Chief Design Officer Sir Jonathan Ive. 

Apple also strives to make people feel more secure. Its seamless mobile shopping service, Apple Pay, features biometric thumbprint technology that offers several layers of security beyond a credit card. The brand is also prioritizing users’ privacy as it innovates: Apple Proactive, for example, gathers data from the phone itself, rather than the cloud.

What keeps Apple so far ahead of its rivals—and perhaps poised to become the world’s first trillion-dollar brand—is its instinct to constantly renew and challenge convention. Apple understands what it takes to accelerate to the top—and keep its number one spot. 

Samsung

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While the South Korean electronics giant still dominates the global smartphone market, Samsung has faced challenges in the mobile sector this year. The brand remains steady, supported by successes in categories like semiconductors, Smart TVs, and connected devices. Samsung is moving forward with a focus on creating products that define whole new categories and taking advantage of B2B opportunities.

With increased competition from Apple and lower-cost competitors in Asia, Samsung’s mobile division profits fell 37.6 percent in the second quarter, compared to the previous year. However, Q3 reports exceeded positive expectations, with overall revenues up KRW4.23 trillion year-over-year (almost 9 percent), ending a two-year decline. Samsung is also enjoying the success of its semiconductor unit, with third quarter profits at KRW 3.66 trillion, compared to KRW 2.26 trillion last year. Samsung is now using its chips in its own smartphones and supplying big businesses like Apple, which will reportedly tap Samsung to make chips for the next-generation iPhone.

Samsung strives to stay competitive in the mobile market with its Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge smartphones—touting features that rival the iPhone’s—and its phablets, the Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Plus. It’s also jumping on mobile payments with the worldwide release of Samsung Pay, which has an advantage over Apple Pay, as the new Galaxy phones work with old-school credit card readers, making the technology more universal.

But for Samsung, newness is the key to maintaining brand momentum. Its global “Next is Now” campaign built anticipation around the launch of its Galaxy phones by previewing its innovative features. Ads aired during the 2015 Oscars put a human spin on the cutting-edge technologies behind Samsung’s Galaxy Note 5 and the SUHD TV—its highest-definition set yet—highlighting how the products fuel creative processes and conversations. The ads align with a company-wide commitment to proving that digital innovation can enrich peoples’ lives. Its ongoing “Launching People” campaign, which shares the stories of people who use Samsung products to turn their visions into reality, won seven awards at this year’s Cannes festival.

Samsung is also tapping into the software market through its Open Innovation Center, with offices in South Korea, California, and New York. The centers are hubs where employees can scout start-ups to invest in, team with, or acquire—Samsung is the sole investor in start-ups that join its accelerators. The brand is also angling to become a leader in the expanding Internet of Things. At the 2015 CES, it pledged that 90 percent of all devices it creates, including televisions and mobile devices, will be Internet-enabled by 2017. It’s proving a key player with launches like the Gear S2, its seventh smartwatch; AddWash, an Internet-connected washing machine; SleepSense, a sleep tracker that you slip under your mattress; and the second-generation SmartThings home automation hub and sensors.

By creating products that empower people and broadening its business focus, Samsung is looking toward a future that goes well beyond smartphones. 

Ibm

Return to 2015 Ranking

IBM has remained an iconic leader at the intersection of business and technology for more than a century by continuously reinventing itself. In doing so, it has been guided by clarity about its role as an enterprise innovation company. This clarity—embedded in its business strategy, culture, and brand message—has kept IBM on the Top Ten list of Interbrand’s Best Global Brands every year. 

As the world’s leading business-to-business brand, IBM has remained in the Top Ten, but its position has fallen a couple of notches, reflecting the company’s struggles during its latest major transition. Over the last few years, IBM has shifted its focus to data/analytics, cloud computing, mobile, social, and security. Although these strategic imperatives have grown rapidly, they do not yet represent the lion’s share of the company’s profit, leading to 14 straight quarters of declining revenue. 

As the company’s transformation continues, it has introduced a new, branded point of view on the future of technology and business, which it calls Cognitive Business, featuring IBM’s Jeopardy!-winning system, Watson. IBM has pioneered perspectives on the future of technology, about once every decade. With the rise of the Web in the mid-1990s, for example, IBM said that the Internet would be about business, not browsing, and its e-business strategy proved prescient. In 2008, as devices proliferated and computing became extended to all manner of things, IBM presented its vision of aSmarter Planet, empowered by information and connectivity. Now, with the emergence of artificial intelligence with real-world applications, IBM introduces what it calls the third age of information technology: "the cognitive era."

IBM sees cognitive computing as the engine propelling the organization back to the forefront of technology and business innovation. Watson is, some believe, the most humanlike computer ever built, and its capacity to make sense of the vast stores of “dark” data—80 percent of what we are now generating—could revolutionize entire industries. The first—and arguably most important—industry that Watson is tackling is healthcare. IBM recently launched the Watson Health business unit, and has systematically made acquisitions, hired top talent, and formed key partnerships to build this division. IBM and CVS announced a partnership in mid-2015 that could change the way patients, practitioners, and pharmacists give and receive care. The company has also partnered with major oncology researchers—from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to MD Anderson, Cleveland Clinic, and New York Genome Center—to tackle the lofty goal of curing cancer. 

The technology behind Watson is enhancing IBM’s capabilities across the organization. Three cloud-based services announced in 2014—IBM Watson Discovery Advisor, Watson Analytics, and Watson Explorer—have contributed to a 70 percent revenue increase in cloud computing in the first half of fiscal year 2015. IBM’s robust data and analytics capabilities—along with partnerships with companies like Apple, Twitter, Facebook, and more—are helping the brand to reassert its prowess.

For IBM, Watson may be the key differentiator—the defining technology that sets the global brand apart from a myriad of competing innovators.

Panasonic

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This year, as part of its promise to create “A Better Life, A Better World,” Panasonic shifted its focus from consumer products to the spaces that people thrive in, organizing its strategy around three B2B markets: home and living, business, and automotive.

To accelerate the shift to B2B, Panasonic focuses on building its presence in the Internet of Things. It has made a point of merging its existing abilities with those of high-profile partners. In tandem with its Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town initiative, it announced the development of a “Smart City” in Yokohama, a high-tech, eco-friendly complex that will house Apple’s new research and development center. Panasonic also introduced advanced technologies to support connected vehicles at the 2014 Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress (ITS) in Detroit and is developing a cloud service in partnership with Toyota that links cars to home appliances. Panasonic is also big on wearables—its new robotic suit is designed to help workers do heavy lifting. Robot porters and wearable translation devices are also in the brand’s plans for its 2020 Olympics sponsorship. 

While focusing on business partnerships, the brand remains connected to its consumer market. It plans to introduce a “Japan Premium” brand in the ASEAN region and create new high-value products aimed at China’s wealthy class. In 2014, Panasonic relaunched its defunct audio brand, Technics, and recently announced the revival of its signature turntables. With the goal of delivering a high-impact audio experience to listeners, the brand also plans to leverage Technics technology in its automotive endeavors.

People—and partnerships—fueled Panasonic's recent marketing efforts. Panasonic tapped big names like Scholastic, Meredith Digital, AARP, Grandparents.com, and SheKnows Media—as well as its own employee ambassadors—to promote HomeTeam, a cloud-based service designed to connect long-distance grandparents and their grandchildren. The brand also linked its social initiatives to its social media efforts with the interactive “Cut Out the Darkness” campaign. Website visitors can learn about the plight of global communities lacking electricity, and are encouraged to create, share, and vote on their own LED lantern designs.

Panasonic is powered by unceasing momentum and a broad array of strengths. The continued execution of a “Cross-Value Innovation 2015” strategic plan and the restructuring of unprofitable business sectors have driven operating profit up by 25 percent this year.

Sony

Return to 2015 Ranking

2015 was another difficult year for Sony—from a costly cyber attack to criticism over the decision to not screen The Interview and a drop in revenue in its entertainment and mobile businesses. However, the company is showing clear signs of righting its course.

Sony’s poetic “Be Moved” campaign supports its more prosaic mission: being "a company that inspires and fulfills your curiosity." To deliver that promise to its consumer businesses, starting in October 2015, CEO Kazuo Hirai will oversee continued streamlining and the restructuring of key areas it has identified as growth drivers for the next three years: Devices, Game & Network Services, Pictures, and Music. With a plan to introduce greater accountability and profitability, the goal is to boost income to USD $4.2 billion by 2018. Hirai will also directly influence the brand strategy as Sony defines its value to the consumers of tomorrow. 

Sony’s new mission has ushered in a return to its roots: The intention of using technology to contribute to Japanese culture through technology and a spirit of “doing what has never been done before.” With this spirit in mind, it launched First Flight, a Japanese-only crowdfunding website that is an extension of its Seed Acceleration Program. As well, its New Business Creation department now holds "idea auctions" every three months.

Earlier in the year, Sony made headlines not only with the refashioning of the iconic Walkman, but also with plans to spin it and audio devices into a separate company. The product—now positioned as a premium product and targeted at audiophiles—sells for around USD $1,200. With the creation of a separate company for such devices, it is apparent that Sony plans to create greater accountability, focus, and freedom.

But it’s the PlayStation 4 (PS4) that’s proving to be Sony’s 2015 success story. It’s on course to outsell the celebrated PS2, and the gaming division turned a healthy profit. Now with a dedicated ecosystem of cloud-based games (PlayStation Now), TV (PlayStation Vue), and music (Spotify on PlayStation Music), along with a virtual reality headset in the pipeline (Project Morpheus), the PS4 will offer more. Connecting these services to the console positions the brand to own a greater share of consumers’ entertainment choices.