Let’s start off with a simple question…what differentiates a brand from a product? Any idea? Or better don’t bother thinking because whatever you say will be CORRECT! This is because brands are what consumers perceive them to be. That is the beauty of branding my friends…companies only make products, but it is YOU who make the brands!

Shortlisted Brands for the year 2010:

The Marketing Society is U.K.-based non-profit organization who bestows ‘Marketing Society Awards for Excellence’ to the top performing brand in U.K. Voting for the Top Brand of 2010 has started, and the winner will be announced in the Marketing Society Annual Conference on November 18, 2010 at Old Billingsgate, London. Since the organization is U.K based, most of the nominees are U.K brands. But all in all, the list includes many famous brands as well.

Following are 15 of the 20 nominees for brand of the year 2010:

Coca-Cola – The Neglected Brand!!!

Although I understand that these brands were based on U.K market survey, hence they reflect more U.K brands that any other. But it was startling to see that Coca-Cola, ranked #1 brand for 2010 by Interbrand, not making the list of nominees in the Market Society Awards. Coke has been the top performing brand in terms of brand value for the past decade (2001-2010). And it really deserves to be on the top spot with a brand value of $70,452 million.