The Coca-Cola Company is the most "powerful" global corporate brand, according to a recent report from CoreBrand.
The organization compiled its 2014 rankings by polling 10,000 business professionals on their impressions of top brands at the corporate level, not individual products or divisions. Respondents were asked to evaluate the power of brands based on two criteria: familiarity (how well is the brand known?) and favorability (does the brand have a positive reputation, well-regarded management, and good investment potential?).
Coca-Cola has been ranked number one since 2008, when CoreBrand released its first study. The gap between it and Hershey, the number two brand in the rankings, is the greatest between any two successively listed brands on the list (2.8 points).
Amazon.com recorded the biggest gain over the previous year, jumping 25 positions to rank 91st. IBM was the second highest gainer, up 15 positions to rank 49th.
Among the top 25 brands, Microsoft had the largest gain, up nine positions to number 11. Microsoft is up 34 positions since 2008. Google is the biggest overall gainer since 2008, up 90 positions to come in at number 26.
UPS, Walgreens, and CBS had the most loss over the past year: UPS fell from 11th to 22nd; Walgreens fell from 12th to 23rd; and CBS fell from 58th to 69th. Among the top 10, Kellogg had the biggest loss, falling four positions from 5th to 9th. CBS had the largest decline since 2008, losing 48 positions from its high rank of 21st.
