15 Virginia-based brands on most-valuable list

Published March 30, 2017 by Robert Powell, III

Virginia is home to 15 of the 500 most valuable brands in the U.S., according to a ranking released on Thursday.

Brand Finance, a London-based valuation and strategy consultancy, says that Virginia’s most valuable brand is Marlboro, a line of cigarette products produced by Philip Morris USA, a subsidiary of Henrico County-based Altria Group.

Brand Finance estimates Marlboro’s brand value at $32.5 billion this year, up from $29.9 billion last year. The cigarette brands ranks 15th among the nation’s top 500 brands. Brand Finance also describes Marlboro as the most valuable tobacco brand in the world.

Altria also is the owner of another Virginia brand on the Brand Finance list, Copenhagen, which is produced by the U.S. Smokeless Tobacco subsidiary. Copenhagen has a value of $2.77 billion. It is ranked No. 254 on the national list.

Following Marlboro among Virginia brands is Capital One, the brand of McLean-based Capital One Financial Corp. It is valued at $11.4 billion and ranks 56th on the national list.
Like Altria, McLean-based Hilton also has two hotel brands on the Brand Finance list, Hilton (No. 72) and DoubleTree (No. 430).  Hilton has an estimated value of $8.4 billion while DoubleTree’s value is set at $1.48 billion.

Other Virginia-based companies on the national list include:

General Dynamics (based in Fairfax County), No. 161, valued at $4.44 billion

Dollar Tree (Chesapeake), 169, $4.28 billion

CarMax (Henrico County), 178, $4.11 billion

Northrop Grumman (Fairfax County), 179, $4.1 billion

Advance Auto Parts (Roanoke), 221, $3.21 billion

Norfolk Southern (Norfolk), 238, $2.96 billion

Mars (McLean), 338, $1.95 billion

Dominion (Richmond), 356, $1.86 billion

CSC (Fairfax County), 441, $1.42 billion

AES (Arlington County), 445, $1.4 billion

Overall, the national brand leader was Google at $109 billion, overtaking last year’s leader, Apple, which stood at $107 billion.

California had the most brands on the Brand Finance list, 71.