It’s time for the annual nonsense list of brands…

BusinessWeek Online: Top 100 Global Brands

Some quick notes;

• There are no valuable brands in China, India or anywhere outside the western world. I’m sure that Tata, Wipro, Mittal, Haier, CIC and a few others would beg to disagree.
• When they saw that the Microsoft brand is worth 58 billon dollars, what does it get Microsoft?
  • Since when has anyone bought a product just because it was a Microsoft product?
  • Can these companies lauch into new markets because of the strength of their brand? No. Microsoft has spent a fortune getting over the brand name in video games; Coke has trouble getting out the black sugered water market and Nescafe isn’t going to start selling anything but coffee.

From here the list looks like the Top 100 middle American brands that mean something to the baby boomers.