Apple New No. 1 Brand

Apple has been named “the most valuable brand in the world” by the annual Interbrand “Best Global Brands” report.

Coca-Cola, the Number One-rated brand in each of the previous 13 years, fell to third. Google ranked second.

The report estimates the value of the Apple brand at $98.3 billion, up 28 percent from the 2012 report. The value of the Coca-Cola brand also rose, by 2 percent to $79.2 billion, but that was not sufficient to give Coca-Cola a 14th year as Interbrand’s most valuable brand.

Although “Coca-Cola is an efficient, outstanding brand marketer, no doubt about it,” said Jez Frampton global ceo at Interbrand, Apple and other leading technology brands have become “very much the poster child of the marketing community.”

In fact, five of the top 10 brands for 2013 are in the technology sector: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung and Intel.

“Brands like Apple and Google and Samsung are changing our behavior: how we buy, how we communicate with each other, even whether we speak with each other,” Frampton said. “They have literally changed the way we live our lives.”

The full report will be released today. Interbrand is a corporate identity and brand consulting company owned by the Omnicom Group.