The media industry is constantly evolving, and in the current digital age, media brands have become more important than ever before. The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation in several industries, and media brands have been at the forefront of this transformation.
Every year, Brand Finance releases its Media 50 ranking, which highlights the most valuable and strongest media brands in the world. In this article, we will discuss the most valuable and strongest media brands of 2022.
Table of Contents
The 10 Most Valuable Media Brands of 2022
The rankings of the most valuable media brands as determined by Brand Finance are based a number of factors, including financial performance, brand strength, and consumer perception.
Let’s look at some of the highlights.
Google – The Most Valuable Media Brand
Google is the world’s most valuable media brand with a brand value of $263.4 billion, up 38% from the previous year. Google is renowned for its search engine, which is used by billions of people worldwide.
The company relies on advertising for the vast majority of its revenue, and to an extent, it was affected by the pandemic when advertising spend dropped, however, as the world adjusted to the new normal, advertising budgets opened back up, and Google’s business rebounded, resulting in a healthy uplift in brand value.
WeChat – The Strongest Media Brand
WeChat, is a Chinese social media giant, and even though it is the world’s strongest media brand according to Brand Finance’s index, with a score of 93.3 out of 100, its brand value decreased by 8% to $62.3 billion in 2022.
The company, however, played an integral part in the country’s fight against COVID-19, with more than 700 million people using its services to book vaccinations and tests.
WeChat is deeply entrenched in people’s lives, offering a broad range of services such as messaging, video calling, food ordering, and shopping.
Twitter – Regenerated
Twitter’s brand value increased by 85% to $5.7 billion, even before Elon Musk’s takeover attempt. Twitter’s brand valuation is correlated with its valuable brand amongst its biggest users, highly-educated opinion leaders.
In 2022, Twitter jumped ten places from 36th to 26th in the global rankings of the world’s most valuable media brands. With Musk’s proposal to take the company private, this brand valuation supports a potential vision for the Twitter brand that has not yet been commercialized.
TikTok – A New Entrant
TikTok/Douyin is the highest new entrant in the Media 50 2022 ranking, valued at $59 billion, an impressive 215% increase from the previous year.
TikTok has grown in popularity this year for entertainment as well as monetizing user-generated content with brand partnerships. A wide variety of consumer brands are implementing TikTok into their marketing spend, creating a new medium of advertising and selling via influencer marketing.
Instagram and YouTube – Leveraging User-Generated Content
Social media brands such as Instagram and YouTube are benefiting from huge volumes of user-generated content.
Instagram’s brand value increased by 34% to $33.5 billion, and YouTube’s brand value increased by 38% to $23.9 billion.
While traditional media companies have to produce content themselves, or spend lots of money to license content from third parties, for distribution across their channels, social media platforms are benefitting from user-generated content. In recent years, various social media channels have been concentrating more and more on rewarding users to encourage them to create more content.
This helps them build stronger brand attachments amongst users who are increasingly identifying themselves as part of the social media brands, and are becoming an important feature of the brands themselves. In fact, social media platforms compete amongst themselves to try and poach the more popular influencers from their competitors and pay good money to enter into exclusive agreements with these influencers and creators.
Tech-Led Media Brands – Dominating the Market
Technology-led media brands constitute 66% of the total brand value in the Media 50 2022 ranking. Brands such as Google, Facebook, Netflix, and YouTube are at the top of the Brand Finance Media 50 2022 ranking.
Meanwhile, Disney and Universal lead the world’s traditional media production and distribution companies, in part because of their successful deployment of new online services.
The remaining eight brands in the top 10 media ranking are disruptive tech-led media brands operating either social media or new streaming platforms.
Facebook Takes Second Place
Facebook is the second most valuable media brand in the world, with a brand value of $101.2 billion, up 24% from the previous year. Facebook is the world’s largest social media platform, with over 2.9 billion monthly active users.
The company has diversified its business in recent years by acquiring companies such as Instagram and WhatsApp, which has helped it to maintain its position as one of the world’s most valuable media brands.
Netflix still Growing in Value
Netflix is another tech-led media brand that has seen tremendous growth in brand value in recent years. The company’s brand value increased by 18% to $29.4 billion, making it the 12th most valuable media brand in the world.
Netflix has disrupted the traditional television industry by offering a streaming service that allows users to watch movies and TV shows on demand. The pandemic has accelerated the company’s growth, as more people have turned to streaming services for entertainment during lockdowns.
Disney and Universal – The Old Favorites
Disney is the world’s fifth most valuable media brand, with a brand value of $57.1 billion, up 11% from the previous year. The company’s success can be attributed to its successful deployment of new online services, such as Disney+, which has become a popular streaming service since its launch in 2019.
Disney is also one of the world’s largest media production companies, with a vast portfolio of movies, TV shows, and theme parks.
Universal is another traditional media production company that has successfully deployed new online services. The company’s brand value increased by 11% to $12.9 billion, making it the 10th most valuable media brand in the world.
Universal has a vast portfolio of movies, TV shows, and music, and it has been successful in leveraging these assets to create new online services, such as the Universal Music Group, which is the world’s largest music company.
Conclusion
While Tech-led media brands dominate the ranking, with companies such as Google, Facebook, Netflix, and YouTube at the top, the Social media platforms, such as Instagram and TikTok, are leveraging user-generated content to build strong brand attachments amongst users. Time will tell if these brands will overtake the tech-led brands in the coming years.
Meanwhile, traditional media production companies such as Disney and Universal have successfully deployed new online services to stay relevant in the digital age.
The media industry is constantly evolving, and it will be interesting to see how media brands adapt to the changing landscape in the years to come.
For more Brand valuation rankings check out our site’s Brand section.
