In 2018, there wasn’t a single week where we didn’t see Amazon or its CEO, Jeff Bezos, dominate headlines. From making major announcements about — and eventually reigning back — plans for its second headquarters, to branching into the clothing and grocery industries, to solidifying international sells of its artificial intelligence technology — the company has raised the standard for what it means to be a global brand.
Now, BrandZ has named Amazon as the most valuable brand of the year in its Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2019 report — knocking off Apple and Google for the top position. Amazon grew by 52 percent from 2018 to 2019.
“Amazon is a serial disruptor,” said David Roth, the CEO of The Store WPP, EMEA and Asia. Roth said that Amazon has changed what customers expect from brands and what businesses expect from suppliers and partners.
“It’s doubtful that any of us predicted that this company would sell so much more online, transforming retail—and other categories—in just a couple of decades,” Roth said.
Amazon’s accelerated growth made it ideal for the top position. Despite controversies around worker pay and artificial intelligence ethics, the company has been able to sustain growth globally as it builds and acquires more companies. In September 2018, Amazon became the second U.S. publicly traded company to hit a $1 trillion market cap.
Big tech companies took six out of the top ten spots on BrandZ’s list with Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook making appearances.
“Amazon’s phenomenal brand value growth of almost $108 billion in the last year demonstrates how brands are now less anchored to individual categories and regions,” Doreen Wang, Kantar’s Global Head of BrandZ, said in a statement. “The boundaries are blurring as technology fluency allow brands, such as Amazon, Google and Alibaba, to offer a range of services across multiple consumer touchpoints.”
