ICICI only Indian brand in Millward Brown's Most Valuable Brands list

Millward Brown has released its annual Millward Brown Optimor 'BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands' list, the rankings for which take into account customers' opinions on brands.

For the first time, an Indian brand - ICICI Bank - features in the list at number 45, alongwith 12 other brands from developing markets. This is the first year that all members of the BRICs have been represented with new entrants from China, Russia and Brazil.

Technology brands Google, IBM, Apple and Microsoft demonstrated their pervasiveness by taking the first four places in the ranking.

Use of social media was a key trend observed across many successful brands and the social media behemoth, Facebook, entered the technology ranking for the first time.

Millward Brown stated that the value of the Top 100 brands has increased by 4 percent since last year’s results and by 40 percent in the five years that the ranking has been published.

"In the past, many companies were quick to cut their marketing spend during a down economy," said Joanna Seddon, CEO of Millward Brown Optimor. "A new trend has emerged in the wake of the recession as more companies realized the importance of maintaining and even increasing budgets to support brand loyalty and engagement."