The World's 'Most Valuable Brands'

Here are the top 10 brands of 2012, as ranked by Interbrand: Coca-Cola, Apple, IBM, Google, Microsoft, GE, McDonald's, Intel, Samsung and Toyota. Notice that the top eight companies are precisely the same as 2011, albeit jumbled greatly. The only consistencies that remain are Coca-Cola in the No. 1 spot and Google in the No. 4 spot.

For that matter, it's not difficult to see why these companies make money. If you take a trip to Wal-Mart (WMT) or Target (TGT), you'll see people paying a premium for Coca-Cola over the generic, choosing between Pampers and Huggies, buying Listerine instead of the store brand of mouth wash, and trusting their shaves to Gillette. Aside from the added cost of incremental advertising, there really isn't that much of a difference between what it costs these companies to make their products against the generic -- yet the price premium is huge.

Source: Seeking Alpha

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