In an age when customers and stakeholders expect more than ever from companies; in a time when people scrutinize what companies do much more than they did only a few years back; only savvy brands can expect to grow and make a positive impact on their audiences. APCO Worldwide defines the savviest of all as Champion Brands, and shows you the road to become one with a first-of-its-kind global study that measures the brand strength of nearly 600 of the world's largest public and private companies, and identifies the top 50 of them all.
APCO identifies a simple formula for becoming a champion brand. It involves 4 key ingredients: Alignment (Al); Authenticity (Au); Attachment (At); and Advocacy (Ad).
Champion Brands have traveled a long way from push strategies, to building genuine relationships with consumers and stakeholders, to working in the best interest of society:
"Audiences worldwide increasingly expect companies to contribute to positive social change," explained Margery Kraus, founder and CEO of APCO Worldwide. "And corporate leaders now recognize they are an essential part of the societies in which they operate — essential for what they bring to the market, for the economic and social value they bring to the community, and for how they can help transform the social and environmental challenges of our time."
APCO Worldwide Formula for Champion Brands
The top world brands today, aka the Champion Brands, share common traits and a common formula that blends four key ingredients: Alignment (Al); Authenticity (Au); Attachment (At); and Advocacy (Ad).
Alignment: meeting stakeholders' most important expectations
Authenticity: acting in a way that is consistent with what a company says
Attachment: the extent to which stakeholders connect emotionally with a company
Advocacy: advocating on behalf of stakeholders' interests, applying unique expertise and assets to add value to society
This is APCO's 21st-century framework for building corporate brands, and it is based on a study conducted by APCO Insight®, which surveyed more than 70,000 people in 15 countries.
"The study demonstrated that excellence on each attribute is increasingly difficult to achieve, but as companies advance through each dimension they do more than simply build product brand value," explained Bryan Dumont, president of APCO Insight. "Companies that perform well against all of the 4As move from being good corporate brands to becoming Champion Brands, and Champion Brands are winning in this new environment."
Top 50 Global Champion Brands
Among the top 50 world Champion Brands you'll identify many names you already know, and many Internet companies like Adobe, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!. But the list is not limited to them — consumer brands can be Champions too, based on the same formula revealed above. The top 50, as identified by APCO's Champion Brand Index in alphabetical order:
3M Company, Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Bayer, BMW Group, Canon, Caterpillar, Colgate-Palmolive, Costco Wholesale, Deere & Company, Dell, Discovery Communications, Disney, Ford Motor Company, Google, H.J. Heinz Company, The Hershey Company, Home Depot, Honda Motor, HP, HTC, IKEA, Intel, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg, Levi Strauss, LG Electronics, MasterCard, Michelin, Microsoft, Nestlé, NIKE, Panasonic, PepsiCo, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Samsung, SC Johnson, Sharp Electronics, Siemens, Sony, Stanley Black & Decker, The Coca-Cola Company, Toyota, Visa, Volkswagen Group, Whirlpool, and Yahoo!.
According to Margery Kraus, founder and CEO of APCO Worldwide, these brands have best aligned their business strategy, vision, and values with the shared interests of their stakeholders:
"Today's most successful brands — Champion Brands — are creating enduring relationships with their stakeholders by creating societal value while also delivering corporate value."
Focus on the "Stakebroker"
The "Stakebroker" is a new entity identified by APCO in a group of engaged individuals who are different from traditional influencers. Stakebrokers act and think differently, and they are interested in the success of the companies, unlike traditional influencers, who may or may not have the companies' interests at heart. Stakebrokers are highly engaged and influential individuals and broker information and influence to both the masses and elites. They seek information, join groups, do things to drive change, and believe in the power of companies to shape a better society. This is what makes them crucial to becoming a Champion Brand:
"In terms of future-proofing a corporate brand, these are the people — generationally and geographically — to whom the company needs to pay attention," said Robert Schooling, president of APCO's Americas region.
Editor's note (2026 update)
APCO's 4A framework — Alignment, Authenticity, Attachment, Advocacy — remains a core piece of the firm's reputation-measurement IP. The "Stakebroker" concept introduced in this 2013 study foreshadowed what would later become the influencer-and-creator-economy stack. In the AI Communications era, brand reputation now extends into AI engine retrieval — see The Reputation Management AI Citation Share Study.
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
