Facebook Most Valuable Media Brand

Facebook replaced Disney as the top-valued media company, according to the Brand Finance’s “Media 25” report.

This year marks the first time that the independent brand valuation consultancy has included social media, and Facebook “stormed into the ranking in first place,” with a brand value of $79.8 billion, reports Mediapost.

“With over 2.5 billion active monthly users, Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the world and the brand continues to post profits above analyst expectations.

The ranking underlines how “disconnected” Facebook’s success has been to its public reputation, at least to date, note the analysts, citing the company’s weathering of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, among others. As to the current criticism from many fronts about its failure to stop hate speech, including the current #StopHateForProfit ad boycott, “It’s too early to tell how [Facebook’s] brand value will emerge from the chaos of 2020.”

This year’s top 10 most valuable media brands also include YouTube at #3 (also down 1 place, thanks to Facebook), Tencent (new to the index), Facebook Inc.’s Instagram (new to the index), Netflix, NBC, Universal, NetEase (new to the index) and CBS.

Fox was the fastest falling media brand. With a 47% decrease in brand value, to $8.4 billion, it dropped eight positions, to 12th place, in the media valuation ranking.

SiriusXM was the fastest growing brand, showing 33% valuation growth, to reach $5 billion.

The report notes YouTube and Netflix as media brands “to watch,” given their accelerated growth as consumer media consumption habits have changed since the pandemic.