Google has dethroned Apple in Brand Finance’s annual ranking of America’s most valuable brands, ending Apple’s five-year run atop the valuation and strategy consultancy’s leaderboard.
Greater Washington, meanwhile, is home to 14 of the nation’s top brands, according to the rankings, though none in the top 50. Tops in the D.C. area? Tysons-based Capital One at 56, followed by McLean-based Hilton at 72 and Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin at 78.
The rankings, unveiled today, chart the nation’s 500 most valuable brands based on a variety of factors, all aimed at determining how much of a given business’s revenue is attributable to the brand. Marketing investment, familiarity, preference, sustainability and margins are among the factors.
Brand Finance assigned Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., a brand value of $109 billion for 2017, up 24 percent from last year’s $88 billion valuation that ranked it No. 2. Apple, meanwhile, saw its brand value fall 27 percent, to $107 billion from almost $146…
