PRESS RELEASE: Apr. 21, 2008 The third annual BrandZ(TM) Top 100 Most Powerful Brands ranking issued today by global market research and consulting firm, Millward Brown, proves that brands are becoming ever more valuable and powerful in driving business growth. The top five brands, led by Google again this year with a brand value of $86.1 billion, included GE ($71.4 billion), Microsoft ($70.8 billion), Coca-Cola ($58.2 billion) and China Mobile ($57.2 billion). Eight of the Top 10 brands are based in the U.S.

The BrandZ Top 100 ranking, which identifies the world's most powerful brands as measured by their dollar value, is produced by Millward Brown Optimor, the practice within Millward Brown dedicated to helping companies maximize returns from brand and marketing investments.

The combined value of all brands in the BrandZ Top 100 increased by 21 percent from $1.6 trillion in 2007 to $1.94 trillion in 2008, more than double the increase experienced the previous year.

In terms of year-on-year growth of brand value by category, Mobile Service Providers, Technology, Personal Care, Fast Food and Luxury products ranked highest. The three top risers by brand value were: BlackBerry (up 390%), Apple (up 123%) and Amazon (up 93%).

"This year's brand ranking demonstrates the importance of investing in brands, especially in times of market turmoil. Strong brands generate superior returns and protect businesses from risk," said Joanna Seddon, CEO of Millward Brown Optimor. "Our data shows that strong brands continue to outperform weak ones in terms of market share and share price during recessions."

The most notable trends emerging from this year's BrandZ ranking include:
1. Technology Boom -- The technology sector (including mobile service providers), which accounted for 28 of the top 100 brands, outperformed all other categories in this year's BrandZ ranking, with a brand value growth of $187.5 billion. This is more than half of the Top 100's total increase.

2. Brands Based in Emerging Asian Markets Outperformed Those Based in Established Asia -- Chinese brands continue to get stronger according to the new BrandZ ranking. Seven brands in this year's Top 100 come from mature Asian economies: Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong. Their aggregate brand value increased by seven percent in the last year (to $111 billion). In contrast, the value of the four Chinese brands that made this year's BrandZ Top 100 increased by 51 percent (to $124 billion). China Mobile, Bank of China, China Construction Bank and ICBC (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China) are only just starting to expand beyond China so they have considerable potential for further growth.

3. Continued Rise of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) -- Emerging markets play a key role in driving growth for international brands, for example Apple and Gucci. The new BrandZ ranking shows that domestic brands from emerging economies are gaining momentum. Chinese brands performed strongly and Russian-based mobile operator MTS entered the ranking at number 89. MTS is the first Russian brand to make the Top 100 list with a brand value of $8.1 billion. Other BRIC brands to watch in future brand rankings include Lukoil ($851 million), a motor oil brand; Baltika ($1.1 billion), a beer brand, both from Russia, and Brahma ($944 million), a Brazilian beer.

Commenting on this year's BrandZ ranking, Eileen Campbell, Global CEO of Millward Brown said, "We've been tracking brand equity on WPP's behalf for 10 years, so we know what hard work it is and what a fantastic achievement it is for any brand to reach BrandZ Top 100 status. We'd like to congratulate these companies for their extraordinary performance and commitment to the power of great brands and the role that effective marketing plays in building them. Particularly in a challenging global economy, we were delighted to see such high growth, reconfirming our assertion that sustained marketing support is a winning strategy, even in tough business conditions."

The BrandZ ranking is the first and only ranking that combines solid consumer research with publicly available financial data. The ranking uses proprietary brand equity data to determine a brand's contribution to business value and its future growth prospects. Derived from WPP's BrandZ database, the world's largest repository of brand equity data, the study has interviewed more than one million consumers globally and covers 50,000 brands worldwide. The BrandZ ranking is the first study to cover both business and consumer brands, and to include predictive metrics of future brand performance. Market performance metrics and financial data were obtained from Datamonitor and Bloomberg respectively.

The complete BrandZ ranking report with category and regional breakdowns as well as additional analysis is available online at http://www.millwardbrown.com/mboptimor