Smirnoff
Brand Value: $1,883 Million
Smirnoff made vodka chic, Martians mocked us for mashing potatoes, The Tetley Tea Folk soothed us with a cup of tea and the Cadbury Flake Girl seduced us with the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate. Meanwhile every young kid wanted to be cruising up ...
BT
The Worst Kept Promise In The World
It was the year of the telephone. As mobiles became more accessible for normal people, BT was using Bob Hoskins to persuade us to talk for longer on our landlines. “It’s Good to talk” was trying to reduce the perception that phone calls were expe...
Habitat
Brand Value: $203 Million
Newness and new things dominated 1964. There was a flurry of innovations in media and retail, not to mention Flora and the Flymo. Even Mr Potato Head went plastic. While Flora was invented following a plea from the medical community to create...
Easyjet
Brand Value: $589 Million
In 1995, the new order arrived in the form of two enduring brands fit for a brave new world –easyJet and Sony Playstation. Each brand has since revolutionised their industry.
No-frills airline, EasyJet, led by larger-than-life Greek entrepreneu...
Marks and Spencer
M&S food is not just food
2006 was the year the new management team at M&S could breathe a sigh of relief. Following an unblinkered focus on getting the right products at the right prices in the right places and a confident coherent marketing campaign, M&S had bec...
Nescafe Gold Blend
Brand Value: $7,749 Million
1988 spawned a series of catchphrases from Nike’s “Just Do It”, “Cowabunga” from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, “Loadsamoney” from Harry Enfield and “an ology” from BT’s Beattie. Then there was Hello! As Spanish celebrity magazine Hola! launch...
British Gas
If You See Sid Tell Him
As Argentinian footballer, Diego Maradona handballed his way to become the most-hated man in the UK, a nation consoled themselves by buying lots of British Gas shares, reading a new newspaper called The Independent and watching a new Australian s...
Schweppes
Schhh . . . you know who
The very first Doctor Who time travelled into 1963 as an elderly man and grandfather. Accompanied by a radiophonic theme tune and an enduring monster called the dalek, Doctor Who grew to become a national institution. Two years on and The B...
McDonalds
Brand Value: $10,417 Million
It will be seen as the year of financial meltdown, the year consumers realised that not all banks can be trusted and that safety and caution should dominate investment decisions rather than risky high interest rates. It will be seen a...
Join the debate
To celebrate our 50th Anniversary we have already chosen 50 Golden Brands from 1959 to 2008, but now we want you to help us choose the Golden Brand of 2009 which will be awarded at our 50th Anniversary Gala Dinner on November 16 at the Battersea Evolution.
Which brand do you think is worthy of our Golden Brand of 2009?