Recent estimates put the value of the Apple brand at more than US$300 billion dollars and the Amazon brand at more than US$315 billion. Over recent years, these two brands have been swapping places as the biggest business in the world by market capitalisation – even though Amazon has revenue that is half that of Apple. […]

 Recent estimates put the value of the Apple brand at more than US$300 billion dollars and the Amazon brand at more than US$315 billion. Over recent years, these two brands have been swapping places as the biggest business in the world by market capitalisation – even though Amazon has revenue that is half that of Apple.The impact of these monster businesses can be profound. The big four brands – Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Netflix, when combined, have a market capitalisation bigger than all but six countries on the planet.There are a number of famous or perhaps infamous examples of the stock price of a business falling significantly just because one of these businesses issued a media release suggesting they were going to enter the market. Just recently, the $200 million float of UNLOCKD in Australia was scuttled when Google refused to do business with them.These are enormous corporations with the power…