You may have heard in the news that Apple just passed Google as the most valuable global brand in 2010. But that wasn’t the only interesting news to come out of the latest Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands Report. Some of the other news illustrates just how quickly our global marketplace is changing and how important brand building has become. For example:

• Facebook made the Top 100 Brands list for the first time at No. 35 after their brand rose almost 250% in value in one year!
• Amazon eclipsed Walmart to become the No. 1 retail brand after rising 37% in value in 2010.

So, what do the stories of the global players have to do with the smaller companies that make up the bulk of the businesses in the world?

For one thing, we can all learn from some of the themes that they incorporated into their successful brand building campaigns. According to the Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands Report, some themes that worked successfully in 2010, included:

• Individuality & customization
• Personal health & wellness
• Environmentalism
• Social consciousness

Another trend that emerged was the variety of attempts to cultivate the long-term loyalty of “Millennials,” now in their teens and twenties, with Facebook sites, YouTube videos and mobile apps.

To see who made the top 100 list and learn about some of the latest trends in brand building, download the Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands Report.