American Express, Mercedes and BMW are among the brands best at protecting and expanding their digital presence, according to a VeriSign report released yesterday
The VeriSign Digital Brand Index Report evaluated the top 25 global brands as identified by Interbrand Corp. and assigned an index score to companies in three categories:
· Digital Brand Protection Index, how well companies represent, protect and manage their brand names on the Internet in the 50 most critical global business markets.
· Digital Brand Damage Index, how often a corporate brand is compromised or damaged by third-party activities, such as cybersquatting, address hijacking or the posting of questionable materials on a related but uncontrolled site.
· Digital Brand Promotion Index, how often a Web address owned by a company actually resolves to a branded Web site.
The report found that American Express had the best overall record, followed by Mercedes, BMW and a tie between Ford and Toyota. McDonald's, Intel, Disney, IBM and Oracle also ranked high.
Among the three categories, Mercedes had the highest brand protection index score, BMW had the most impressive brand damage index score and American Express captured the highest mark in the brand promotion index.
The report also noted that the top 25 global brands are doing better at protecting the three global domains, .com, .net and .org, primarily used in the United States. Currently, 15 of the top 25 global brands are represented across all three of these global domains. Just eight months ago, when VeriSign conducted its last review, fewer than half of the top brands were represented.
VeriSign, Mountain View, CA, is a Web security and services firm.
