自从BrandZ开始编制“年度世界最有价值品牌排行榜”以来，苹果公司（Apple）的品牌价值首度大幅增长84%，超过1,530亿美元，位列榜首，稳稳超过谷歌（Google）。而自2007年以来，谷歌公司就始终把持着该榜的头把交椅。

    广告业巨头WPP公司的子公司华通明略（Millward Brown）是这一榜单的编制方。据它表示，苹果公司通过将低调的战略和高调的营销策略整合起来，已在消费者中使其品牌熠熠生辉：

    “苹果公司继续默不做声地开发着云计算，同时又高声表态，说它在计算机品类中发现了空白区域，并用全新的设备——iPad来填补了这一空缺。2010年最后一个财季，苹果公司售出的iPad数量超过了Mac电脑。iPad迅速激起了三星（Samsung）这类平板电脑厂商投身竞争，也帮助苹果公司在便携式电脑销售总量上超越了戴尔公司（Dell）和惠普公司（HP）。而苹果的云计算将进一步强化这一品牌作为平台、内容和设备三位一体的地位。”

    谷歌仍是BrandZ考量系统中全球最受信赖和推荐的品牌之一，但今年部分由于Facebook（品牌价值蹿升246%）的挑战，谷歌品牌价值下跌2%。2010年，Facebook取代谷歌成为美国访问量最大的网站。

    这些品牌的价值是如何确定的？BrandZ完整报告的PDF版可在此下载，它是一份长达53页的现代全球营销原理的速成教程。下面就是BrandZ的前100位品牌的榜单。

    For the first time since BrandZ began compiling its annual ranking of the world's most valuable brands, Apple (AAPL) topped the list with an 84% surge that put its value at more than $153 billion, comfortably ahead of Google (GOOG), which had held the top spot since 2007.

    According to Millward Brown, the subsidiary of advertising giant WPP (WPPGY) that compiles the list, Apple's burnished its image with consumers through a combination of low-profile strategies and high-profile marketing tactics:

    "Apple continued quietly developing a cloud and loudly discovered an empty space in the computing category that it filled with a new device – the iPad. In the last quarter of 2010, Apple sold more iPads than Mac computers. The iPad, which quickly met competition from other tablet makers like Samsung, helped Apple pass Dell and HP in total portable computer sales. An Apple cloud would further strengthen the brand as a trinity of platform, content and device."

    Google, which is still one of the world's most trusted and recommended brands as BrandZ measures these things, lost 2% of its value this year in part because of Facebook (up 246%), which overtook Google in 2010 as the most America's most visited website.

    How are these values determined? The complete BrandZ report, available as a pdf here, is 53-page crash course on the principles of modern global marketing. BrandZ's Top 100 list is reproduced below the fold.