• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 7, 2009

Millward Brown Optimor published its 100 most valuable global brands, naming Google the most well-known and valuable in the world. The brand and marketing analytics firm on Thursday began making some noise about its BrandZ Top 100 report.

It's the third consecutive year in a row that Google made No. 1. But this year, the Mountain View, Calif. company's brand equity is worth $100 billion -- a 16% increase from a year ago. Microsoft came in No. 2 at $76.2 billion, up 8% compared with the prior year.

Coca-Cola, IBM, McDonald's, Apple, China Mobile, General Electric, Vodafone and Marlboro follow, rounding out the top 10. That's four high-tech companies in the top 10, along with two telecom carriers. Millward Brown Optimor bases the valuation on the brand's "ability to generate demand. The dollar value of each brand in the ranking is the sum of all future earnings that brand is forecast to generate, discounted to a present day value."

"The rising popularity of online search advertising, which is cheaper than display, is benefiting Google which owns 73% market share in this area." Millward Brown Optimor said in its report.

Despite the bear economy, the total value of the most valuable brands rose by 2% to just less than $2 trillion.

The leading players in the video game console market went to Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, and Sony PlayStation 3, with total sales of 34.5 million units, 28 million units, and 20 million units, respectively. Millward Brown Optimor seemed impressed with Nintendo Wii console's ability to get people to think of gaming as a social -- rather than a solitary -- action, often crossing generations in families.

The report broke down the valuation for gaming consoles. Nintendo Wii came in at $8.25 billion, and Microsoft Xbox 360 at $4.68 billion.

"This innovation was driven by the company's core strategy, which is to appeal to a wide audience and to focus less on perfecting high definition graphics and more on revolutionizing the way people play games," Millward Brown Optimor said in its report.