Nintendo Drops Out of Interbrand 'Best Global Brands' Top 100

Oh no. That was a massive drop at 2014, too.

Best Global Brand isn't about quality, but about $$$, I mean McDonald's isn't blowing anyone away with their burgers. It is about visibility though, and in this case Nintendo's visibility has been slowly eroding, and that's something they have yet to dig a hole out of.

@RoomB31 Going from selling 111,000,000 Wiis down to 10,100,000 Wii US doesnt help. Its not like McDonalds has ever gone from having 30,000 restaurants down to having 3,000.

Eh, so? Unless there are people who actually only pay attention to brands that are on this list (which I'll assume does happen, but not on any noticeable level), the impact of Nintendo not being on it is very much inconsequential.

I don't recognize half them brands in the picture above, and there top ones?

No one should be surprised about this considering how Nintendo has done nothing to solve their gradual decline for the last 20 years.

@Kaze_Memaryu
That makes no sense, if people were not paying attention to those brands, they would not be on that list. Sure, it may not be the only ones they pay attention to but it is probably what they pay attention to most.

@KirbyKirbyKirby

Really, there is only one I don't quite recognize and that is the little blue one between Samsung and McDonald's. I've seen it, I just don't know the name, the rest are all very common.

@KirbyKirbyKirby Not sure where you live but these brands are very popular in America. Not sure if they're popular anywhere else, though.

@BinaryFragger And yet the Amiibo sold like hell.

The fact that the prime minister of Japan himself praises Nintendo for standing still is famous enough if you ask me.

I don't care too much about this. But I definitely think its time for a new direct or something. Summer has really done a number on the company.

Really do hope 2016 is a comeback year.

I wish Nintendo released the Wii Virtual console titles as Wii U HD remakes instead.

Would have been an easy way to fill the release gap we have had this year. It also would have made the Wii U look less barren on store shelves.

Though not life-and-death, this list certainly reflects Nintendo's current situation in the market. The company certainly has its work cut out when it comes to regaining the mainstream spotlight. Hopefully 2016 will be the start of its resurgence.

@KirbyKirbyKirby There is only one I don't know. The rest are all very much "every day" brands to me. Everyone is different though

This is bad news for Nintendo. Something needs to change. I really feel they need to push their products more with marketing. I do think that area is improving slightly but the numbers don't reflect anything positive right now.

@ikki5 I believe the blue one is Procter & Gamble.

From the report on Japanese companies:

Meanwhile, Nintendo (#8, -33%) and Nikon (#16,
-29%) fell substantially in value, unable to adjust to
the rapid changes in their main areas of business.

The drop in value roughly corresponds to the change from Jan./early 2014 to the same period in 2015. It does not reflect the recent increase in value (nearly doubled this year).

Clothing retailer Uniglo debuted (on the list of 30) at #7 — one spot above Nintendo.

@KirbyKirbyKirby I can understand IBM and General Electric, but the others?

@GMB-001
@ikki5

That's general electric. It's a pretty huge and innovative company.

I hope this doesn't make Nintendo leave consoles like sega....

@GMB-001 It's General Electric

"Interbrand looks at various factors, such as profit"

That tells you everything, right there. This organization's metrics of what constitutes being "better" is all about growth (especially infinite growth) based policies. In other words, it's a very fancy way of measuring their econo-peens.

This has nothing to do with "best" meaning how well they contribute to society, or the environment, or the arts, or just being good stewards or patrons in general beyond being a business. If those were metrics, I'd bet you that almost none of these organizations would be in the top 100. (Except Google). These companies all have very dark histories...

And I crack up whenever I think of that incident where an 8 year old Canadian girl called McDonalds "fake food", prompting their PR department to go into damage control mode after realizing that even children are starting to catch on to their crap. You know they're desperate when rebuttals have to be made by fully grown adults against young children...

And I feel terror when I think of how the people living along the Hudson River up in New York have had their lives ruined by General Electric dumping PCB's (polychlorinated biphenyls, a carcinogenic benzene byproduct of petroleum refinement). That stuff even evaporates after attaching to water molecules, so even those living nearby are all contaminated, even if they don't eat or drink from it... It was supposed to be banned in the 1970s, but evidence has been found that GE is still using it in "acceptable quantities", and they refuse to clean any of their mess up...

I could keep going, but that would take all day.

@King47 @spacejump Oh sorry about that, I'm still not very used to American logo..

I don't care. Nintendo to me is #1. American don't take it seriously when it come for video game marketing franchise, but in Japan, they do double-triple.

Eh, anyone who has paid attention to Nintendo in recent years and was aware of this list could've predicted this.
Amazing how they were able to place at 100 before being booted off the list completely.

@HyrulianOfHyrule
Naw this will have no effect on them. They need to do more actual screw ups before they can reach Sega levels. Think of this gen as their Sega Saturn. NX could be their Dreamcast, but actually I think Nintendo has enough fan loyalty left to survive 1 or 2 more disasters before making their Dreamcast gen. Unless they continue to do more things to destroy fan loyalty. They've been on a roll with that.

Interesting timing on this as I've been posting about Nintneds lack of exposure for the past week or as I search retail stores for random retail merchandise for decorative or gift purposes for my sons bar mitzvah party.

This morning's walk thru of my local - small - Target found zero merchandise in anything other than the video game aisle, and the amiibo and video game sections are shrinking as this website covered recently. No sign of little toys that I now used to be there, the TMNT section has grown, adn Power Rangers is still there. Lego seems ot be up to 3 aisles now. StarWars has 2, though 1 of those is Lego crossover. Couldn't find any of the Mario K'nex sets, and I thought there were little Mario blind packs in the card section but I couldn't find those either. I did see a random Mudkip stuffed toy but we're tryign not to go too Pokemon as Mego Charizard X is already pretty much taken over the SSB theme.

My shopping and party aside, the point is Nintneod seems to have no concept of monetization of it's biggest corporate property, Mario. I'd be willing to debate who's bigger, Pokemon's Pikachu or Mario, but it feels like Mario should be bigger. But where is he? Avengers, Batman, Hello Kitty, Frozen, TMNT, Mickey Mouse, Star Wars, all of these brands are EVERYWHERE. Mario needs to be out there more. Much more. Not more video games, he doesn't even need a tv show or movie, just more licensing deals.

And apps. Apps are where the kids are. You don't have an app, you don't exist to anyone under 5. It's nice they signed that amusement park deal, but he needs to be out there more.

I understand there are arguments against integrity and whoring and all of that, but if you want to run a successful business, you have to whore out your star. They should have made an inroads into theme parks while they were flush w/ DS and Wii cash. Not huge ones, just the little arcade types like Lego Discovery Centers or the Crayola museum. Or Nintneod themed Chuck E Cheese and Dave and Busters. Or even pop-up holiday retail shops in the mall for all things Nintendo.

They don't do something soon, they'll only exist as nostalgia like Atari. Probably sell a lot of t-shirts then.

Evey wonder what the little arrow under Amazon means. Simple...they supply from A to Z...Very smart really

@rjejr I honestly don't see Mickey Mouse that much at all unless I'm at the Disney store or at a Disney theme park. Outside of those Mickey Mouse is about as common as Mario is in merchandise and whatnot.

Nintendo should open up more Nintendo World Stores.

@GMB-001 General Electric.

@IceClimbers No, I see a lot more Mickey and Minnie in infant related things - children's bowls, coloring books, bibs, party decorations. I bet in places like Babies R Us or Buy Buy Baby or even Bed Bath and Beyond there is a ton more Mickey than Mario. Depends on where you look. The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse TV show is a big infant thing the past couple of years.

Stock news is really boring. If investor confidence drops, that's equivalent these days to getting flipped off by John Bohener or Vladamir Putin. I never met known and cared for these people, why should it bother me?

@PlywoodStick "That tells you everything right there"
Strangely enough, it doesn't: I have no idea what kind of formula they use to come up with their list, but if we look up some reliable sources and simply take the financial figures reported last July, then we can see that in that quarter, even though the iPhone did them a world of good, Apple suffered a total loss of $60 billion, where Nintendo's losses in that same quarter where nowhere near as big. (to my knowledge it was somewhere around $128 million, which was also slightly mitigated by a favorable yen and some changes in the company and investments) And them going into mobile also hugely increased their share value.
Sources:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-earnings-boosted-by-iphone-sales-1437510647
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/29/us-nintendo-results-idUSKCN0Q30MG20150729
These kinds of lists always remind me of the richest people lists and so on. It has almost no factual value whatsoever and it won't deter any company that wants to do business with you if you're not on this list, and Nintendo has never been very high on that list to begin with, so if it would really mean something, then being nr. 38 would surely also be damaging.
Who in their right mind would want to do business with a company that is nr. 38, right? Luckily, companies hardly take notice of useless lists such as these...

@BinaryFragger Yet they still have made profit.

The only big loss that they made is the Virtual Boy and Radarscope. Other than that, nearly every system that they made has given them revenue to a degree. The 3DS? Selling well. How is it that you don't say anything bad about GBA sales when it didn't sell as well as GB to begin with?

Seems a bit harsh, just because it's not doing what those people that make this list would like to see. Surely, you don't punish a company for doing what it chooses to do, and rather for failing as a company, which, granted, Nintendo has done to a degree with the whole Wii U failure.

If either Occulus Rift or Instagram is in, then you'll know how this list is made.

Not really surprising with all the new brands that have popped up and made near instant millions in the past two, that's right, 2-3 years.

I'm al little surprised no one has brought up the reason why they were dropped in the first place. "Interbrand Japan CEO Yuki Wada said Nintendo was snubbed apparently because the Kyoto-based game-maker is not keeping up with changes in people’s lives, pointing to its failure to jump on the smartphone game bandwagon in a timely manner." http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/10/05/business/nintendo-dropped-list-top-100-brands-first-time/

@rjejr
The curiosity got the best of me. I always resisted, but... why do you always misspell Nintendo on purpose?

@TheRealThanos Really, the Apple figures are a bit different:
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/07/21Apple-Reports-Record-Third-Quarter-Results.html
Quarterly net profit of $10.7 Billions

@Mister_Wu Most of that profit comes from the iPhone, which I already acknowledged in my previous comment. That doesn't take anything away from the fact that their market cap has been reduced by $60 billion, no matter which way you look at it.
And saying those numbers are incorrect would make the Wall Street Journal an unreliable source, which it isn't.
I'm a sales & marketing professional myself so I happen to know a thing or two about financial facts and figures...

Load of the brown stuff, who doesn't know Nintendo?! I'll not get too upset over this

@rjejr I think you nailed it. Nintendo has not done a good job with anything besides their games. The opportunities are there to produce great TV shows, movies, toys, ex; but they just don't embrace these opportunities. They actually have improved their figures from figures that do nothing (basically plastic figures) to figures that can be played with and posed. I always thought the kinex line of Mario stuff was really cool, but let's face it, it's not Lego. But this is just my opinion. I feel that if they produced a quality Legend of Zelda movie that it would do really really good. If they created a quality Mario animated movie, it would do great. All this would improve the brand. I think I said this in another post recently but look what Disney has done with the Marvel brand....it's huge now. It was always a popular brand but what Disney has done with it has multiplied it's popularity even more.

Didn't ever pay attention to this list before this survey. Doesn't matter now I've read this story.
Nintendo's omission is just another excuse for people to use made up words like 'Nintendoomed'.
As a minor aside, without reading the list of other 'top brands' I'd be willing to stake a claim that you can count on one hand the number of other Japanese companies on there. Which is a sign of the times....

@MJKOP It's not that people don't recognize it, it's that there are other brands that are more well known. This is something that Nintendo can improve upon.

@TheRealThanos Sorry, you talked about loss and I thought you were talking about net profit. By the way, the article cannot be read if you don't subscribe, the Market Cap was relative to what period?

@dkxcalibur But looking at the list, there are many that I have no doubt Nintendo are more recognisable than. They might be struggling at the minute but as far as a recognisable brand name? They should be there. Of course if the current struggles continue yes they will slip further from the publics radar but right now people know and recognise Nintendo. IMO, anyway

@Mister_Wu Ah, my bad. I didn't realize that. I've subscribed so long ago I had forgotten about it. Both articles I linked to are related to the previous financial quarters. The figures from the current quarter aren't published yet.

Right now, Nintendo's going the way of Atari; people know about it widely and acknowledge its influence, but only those who grew up with it care about its continued existence.

Hopefully they'll take this as the cold splash of water they so desperately need to wake up.

@TheRealThanos Don't worry, only the WSJ article requires to sign in or subscribe. Thanks for pointing out the Market Cap metric, it's one I usually don't look at. Apple's market cap is constantly decreasing since June, while Nintendo's market cap pretty much doubled with the DeNA announcement and now it's quite stable, although it fell a little after the appointment of Kimishima as new President.

http://ycharts.com/companies/AAPL/market_cap

http://ycharts.com/companies/NTDOY/market_cap

@MJKOP I disagree. I believe that every single one of the brands shown in the image above are more recognizable "globally" then Nintendo....but this is my opinion.

I also don't believe that there's anything wrong with this. It just means that Nintendo has some work to do. There's nothing wrong with admitting you failed or that you can get better at something, it's how you choose to move forward and improve that counts.

@rjejr Ahh, that explains it then. I'm definitely not looking in the right place or for the right things if it's mostly infant related stuff.

@AVahne
I know Nintendo has time to rebuild with the NX but I agree that Nintendo need to do a whole lot worse to reach to Sega's downfall in my personal opinion.

@BinaryFragger What about the 3DS? Its most likely that it will hit 60 million by the end of this year.

@AlexSora89 - "why do you always misspell Nintendo on purpose?"

Occams razor my friend, I can't type. No conspiracy theory necessary.

@dkxcalibur Disney might be the only company that can make Star Wars bigger than it already was, the amount of merchandise in Target was simply staggering. Not just the obvious toys and games, but wall hangings and clothes. It seemed like in almost every aisle there was something with Star Wars on it. I think a light bulb went off in Disney's head when their Princesses line sort of took on a life of it's own. Then Frozen just multiplied that exponentially. If it has a surface, they want 1 of their properties on it.

It's kind of weird there hasn't been a Zelda movie. You would think after Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit proved fantasy could be succesful at the box office movie studios would have been bashing down the doors for Link and Zelda to star in a flick. And Ganandorf is kick butt, I perosnally think his amiibo is the only 1 worth a lick. I'm not sure what game I would pick - too much sailing in WindWaker and Skyward Swordwas kind of slow, but Twilight Princess has that dark element most people seem to like these days. I'v never played the older games but I'll assume OoT would work as it seems similar to TP. And Majoras Mask could work as a weird time travel flick like 12 Monkeys. But something should have been in the works after LotR. Or even Eragon, that dragon egg movie around the same time.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449010/

And Splatoon should be a show on Splat.
Tak had his own show for 2 years after his series of platforming games. W/ the success of the Madagascar films I can't believe "DK and Friends" wouldnt be a hit. DKCTF is practically begging to be a tv show.

Pokemon has been on tv for about 20 years, surely they could find similar success w/ some of their other stars. Star Fox Adventures would make a nice v show, kids love Dinosaurs, and it has a female heroine, sidekick Tricky, and Slippy and the gang, and spaceships. Should be riding the coat tails of all those never ending Star Wars tv CG shows. It's all there, ready to go.

@RoomB31 "McDonalds isn't blowing anyone away with their burgers"
Made me laugh how true that is

@Mister_Wu You're welcome. The thing, or my original point is that I would like to know what criteria they used other than profits to put companies on that list, because otherwise based on the enormous amount of negative figures, some companies shouldn't even be on there, and Apple certainly shouldn't be number two. I'd put Microsoft in second spot myself, or arguably even first place, since they have a very stable profit margin.
If you want to have a complete and accurate top companies list, you must juggle all the numbers, not just the ones that make a company look its best...
@rjejr "Occam's Razor... "
I don't think "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" covers a single continuous misspelling in comments where most other words are spelled correctly, my friend... (and how would you explain that part, then? Happenstance?)
Funny thing is, by my account you have already explained the "Nitnedo mystery" to so many people already, yet every now and then another curious George pops up to ask you wtf is up with that. Maybe time to dedicate a forum topic to it and link the sh** out of that topic in every comment you make to prevent any further questions?

@rjejr
No conspiracy theory on my part, either: I just thought it was kind of a running gag of yours. Besides, I screw up while typing way more often than my posts make it look like. Sorry about that!

@rjejr

the way you're talking, it sounds like you want Nintendo to milk their franchises for all they're worth, until we are literally swimming in in.
and there was already a gawd awful Donkey Kong 3d animated series, no need to produce more.

@rjejr The thing is Nintendo is purely a games company. They are not a multimedia conglomerate like say Disney or Sony they don't have the bottomless cash reserves and resources to put out a massive marketing blitz

@BaffleBlend Atari died because of too MUCH third-party.

They have to get there advertising up. The reason there not in is because, let's face it, the Wii U is a failure. I mean sure it has some great games on it, but basically none of them are advertised. The only game I've seen being advertised is Mario maker, and that's it. Plus casuals still think it's an add on to the Wii, which is sad. Plus, now a days people think Nintendo is for kids all because of the Wii, which is definitely bad. You always see Microsoft and Sony advertising "mature" games, yet Nintendo hasn't. Not even beyonetta, made by sega which Is close to Nintendo, and exclusivity helped it sell well. They better have a good idea on what to do with the NX.

@ikki5 "No one should be surprised about this considering how Nintendo has done nothing to solve their gradual decline for the last 20 years."
This comment makes no sense. If you are referring to profits / sales , they have , in the main , increased over the last 20 years. If you are commenting on the quality of their software it also makes no sense. Super Mario 64 , Ocarina Of Time and Super Mario Galaxy 1 + 2 were all released in the last 20 years. These games regularly appear on best games of all time lists. It is also a fairly dramatic statement in relation to a rather arbitrary list from a brand consultancy company. ( see comments #37 and #41 )

It's simple, really. How to Nintendo:

1. Cloud gaming platform
2. More AAA 3rd party support
3. More powerful, less innovative consoles.

That being said, if they did just that then it would literally be a PS4 with a Nintendo logo on it lol.

Makes sense. Nintendo has gone from selling 101 million Wiis to probably 16-17 million Wii Us, and 154 million DSs to probably 75-85 million 3DSs. The company itself is fine and still produces great games, but that won't be enough to place on a list that takes everything from profits (which while existent, is quite small) and consumer reception (which went to crap after E3 2015) into account.

sigh It's a wonder Nintendo was holding on even in the last couple of years. 2014, 100th place? Wow.

@BaffleBlend Now I wouldn't say that. The 3DS has made Nintendo a pretty penny along the years of its lifespan and so have amiibos.

Off the grid............

Ugh, Apple

@TheRealThanos I feel like I've explained it at least 5 or 6 times, no exaggeration, so I'm really surprised anybody asks at all, and people still keep asking. If my fingers ever do learn to type it correctly, or I figure out how to auto-correct it to Nintendo rather than Nitrated, I may have to start mistyping it on purpose just b/c.

Man, there is so much wrong w/ the grammar in that paragraph I'm tempted to delete it, but I don't have the energy right now.

@AlexSora89 I don't think I could come up w/ a running gag better than Nintendon't, so why bother? And typing that correctly was a once in a lifetime event.

I wouldn't mind having seen Piper bodyslam a Pikachu mascot and then shouting "Piper does what Ninten Don't" though.

PS - No reason to apologize, well except maybe for the since deleted triple post.

@RoomB31 I'd like to believe that somewhere between Frozen and non-existent there's a lot of middle ground they could try for before we all drown.

Planet of the Apes had 5 movies, a tv show, a Saturday morning cartoon, and a movie reboot. Star Trek had a tv show, Saturday morning cartoon, half a dozen tv show spin-offs, and a movie reboot. I think there's a long way Nintnedo can go before we drown in Nintneod based programming. Did you know they ar m aking 3 more Fast and Furious movies, and the star died. And 3 more Star Wars movie, and I can't even begin to describe everything from that universe.

@Wolfgabe The thing is, licensing MAKES them money, it doesn't cost them money. They don't have to make their own children's bibs and bath towels, other companies pay Ntinedo money to use Mario's likeness. I'm sure Nintedo says "no" to many more propositions they get than yes. I' db ewillin gto bet Miyamoto doesn't want to be a pimp fo rhis creations, he doesn't want to whor ethem out. Thats why MArio is nowehre to be sen, not b/c Nitendo doesn' thave th emoney, they just have a sense of "integrity".

Maybe I'm wrong, but I find that hard to believe. More likely Nintedo regrets those incredibly terrible Zelda CDi games and swore never to license again.

It's strange what happened though, during the Wii era. Nintendo had a massive resurgence in hardware, but the customer experience wasn't strong enough. Too much shovelware reflected badly on Nintendo. It's not much good long-term getting customers to buy your product if that product ultimately isn't something worth shouting about. A lot of fun was had with Wii, but some of that fun was at Nintendo's expense: the under-powered graphics, the motion controls that were never quite accurate enough, overly-simplistic mii avatars, outdated online experience, too much shovelware - all this turned the Wii into a novelty, rather than a cherished product, for a large proportion of the 100+ million that bought it. Nintendo's bank balance went up but credibility, arguably, declined.

I feel Nintendo needs to make the NX a 'wow' product, and be prepared to subsidise hardware sales to prevent it being too expensive, to restore some reputation.

Nintendo should make awesome games like they did in the past, it's that simple. Of course, they must adopt the fair cross-buy (not double priced) system, full online features and let parents take care of their children. After all, most Nintendo fans are over 20 years old now. It would also be wise to launch games not called Mario every now and then, you know. In short, good games and a customer-friendly system.

@gcunit I think you are right. I always think of the great Nintendo before the Wii era. Wii was cool and had some cool games (among the shovelware), but it was like throwing a big boomerang, it returned and hit Nintendo's face.

@FLUX_CAPACITOR Wow man, thanks for pointing that one out. I was so focused on being annoyed by yet another top companies list, that I got too lost in the financials of it all while the actual premise of this list was staring me in the face all along. Color me visually impaired...
@rjejr Normally, nobody would notice, I guess. This is the internet after all, and if anything defines comment sections on the internet it is tons of bad grammar and typos, so you wouldn't stand out, but because you hardly make any mistake in your comments otherwise, it is somewhat understandable that people ask: to me it is also still a bit strange to see that one word continuously being typed wrong while most of the other words are correct. And they may not know (me neither) if you use a PC/laptop or a tablet/phone to type. My guess is the latter, since I don't have any auto-correct issues when making comments.

Nobody should be offended. Nintendo wouldn't make the top 1000 list these days.

Nintendo pretty much stopped mainstream advertising when the Wii launched and became a success story. They sat on their cash and did very little in terms of advancing their business and online infrastructure until after Wii U launched and sales promptly collapsed finally spurring this change.

@rjejr
right, but most of those things started out as movie/show, so sequels or other make sense, but its the merch man, the merch! that's the dystopian nightmare, the all new Luigi's Poltergust pooper hoover!

@spacejump Really? Why would you think people haven't heard of IBM? Do you know who invented the PC (full name- IBM compatible PC) that you use?

@Dysnomia What if I'm using a Mac (I'm not, but a possibility)
Also, to someone who wouldn't recognize the others, I wouldn't expect him to know IBM

@BinaryFragger

Those days have been gone since the mid-90's when "Playstation" became synonymous with "video game."

Then over the last generation, "Xbox" became synonymous with "video game." Time will tell if Playstation returns to that point, but "Nintendo" likely will not.

@ikki5 You misunderstand me, I think. What I mean is that people don't abandon a brand just because it's not on this list anymore. They abandoned it first, which resulted in that brand getting knocked off the list. It doesn't cause a second reaction from any noticeable amount of people, though.

@spacejump Awesome me too, but Macs are just IBM compatible PCs too since the switch to x86. M

My point is that it seems like GE would be far more likely to be unknown to someone younger.b they bring good things to life, but not normally in a customer facing way (granted, same with IBM now but their legacy looms large over the PC industry.

It was to be expected. As hard as it may sound, Nintendo has become irrelevant. And they only have themselves to blame!