Its all about brands!

Whether you are asked to "hoover" your house or "google" a recipe, you are living a brand every moment of your life. Celebrating 126 years with 1.8 billion Coke products consumed daily, 50 million Facebook fans and thousands of beverages in its portfolio; Coca-Cola is a name that is universally recognised today more than any other in the world.
From lighting the Olympic torch to strong brand associations, Coca-Cola stands tall as the top global brand yet again.
Besides selling millions of beverages in the grounds of London Olympics in 2012, Coca-Cola amongst others brands like McDonalds, Samsung and Visa, scored over 90 percent brand awareness amongst respondents from US, Canada, UK, France, Germany and Australia. It also stood amongst the top three most appropriate sponsors of the game, according to a study conducted by Research Now.
Be it just emotional connection as a response to Steve Jobs death or the belief in consistency, imagination and innovation behind the product, many of us continue to be Apple emissaries. According to Inter brands ranking, Apple is the fastest growing brand with brand value jumping meteorically by 129 percent in 2012 to the second spot.
What might threaten Apple is the loss of its niche and differentiation in the coming years due to continuous flooding of technology and increased competition from growing players like Samsung, Google, etc., in the smart phone and tablet market.
Stiff competition from the peer brands like Apple and Microsoft, and failure of Google Plus over Facebook could not rein in Google from being one of the top global brands. Amongst the toppers and the risers of 2012, the search engine giant with restrictive search engine market share to maneuver, has continued to transform itself into a broader IT company.
And the holdups around the recent patent trials with Apple could not boggle down the South Korean brand Samsung, which has grown tremendously in 2012 enjoying a market share of over 19 percent and a jump in brand value of dazzling 40 percent YoY.
The good news for Samsung is its global leadership in smart phone shipments in 2011 against Apple and Nokia, and its Galaxy SIII success and Olympic sponsorship in 2012.
Where the big, shaky IPO and plunging stock prices could not hold back Facebook from joining the brand race, BBM and QWERTY could not save the Blackberry brand from plunging to new lows.
New brands joined Interbrands portfolio and some departed in 2012. Technology unrelentingly was the dominant sector for top ten brands, majority of which were American. German and Japanese brands that moved up the ladder were generally automotives and electronics, whereas luxury and apparel remained the foray for many European brands.