Apple Passes Google To Become World's Most Valuable Brand The 10 Highest Paid CEOs

Apple has overtaken Google as the world's most valuable brand, ending a four-year reign by the Internet search leader, according to a new study by global brands agency Millward Brown.

The iPhone and iPad maker's brand is now worth $153 billion, almost half Apple's market capitalization, says the annual BrandZ study of the world's top 100 brands.

) The 50 highest-paid CEOs for 2010 in an Associated Press analysis for Standard & Poor's 500 companies. The analysis includes companies that had the same CEO for all of 2009 and 2010 and that filed proxy statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission between Jan. 1 and April 30. They are based on the AP's compensation formula, which adds up salary, perks, bonuses, preferential interest rates on pay set aside for later, and company estimates for the value of stock options and stock awards on the day they were granted last year.

Philippe Dauman, Viacom, $84.5 million

Compensation raise: 149 percent

Apple's portfolio of coveted consumer goods propelled it past Microsoft to become the world's most valuable technology company last year.

2. Ray Irani, Occidental Petroleum, $76.1 million

Compensation raise: 142 percent

Peter Walshe, global brands director of Millward Brown, says Apple's meticulous attention to detail, along with an increasing presence of its gadgets in corporate environments, have allowed it to behave differently from other consumer-electronics makers.

"Apple is breaking the rules in terms of its pricing model," he told Reuters by telephone. "It's doing what luxury brands do, where the higher price the brand is, the more it seems to underpin and reinforce the desire."

3. Leslie Moonves, CBS, $56.9 million

Compensation raise: 32 percent

"Obviously, it has to be allied to great products and a great experience, and Apple has nurtured that."

Of the top 10 brands in Monday's report, six were technology and telecoms companies: Google at number two, IBM at number three, Microsoft at number five, AT&T at number seven and China Mobile at number nine.

4. David Zaslav, Discovery Communications, $42.6 million

Compensation raise: 265 percent

McDonald's rose two places to number four, as fast food became the fastest-growing category, Coca-Cola slipped one place to number six, Marlboro was also down one to number eight, and General Electric was number 10.

5. Richard Adkerson, Freeport McMoran Copper & Gold, $35.3 million

Compensation raise: 76 percent

Walshe said demand from China was a major factor in the rise of fast-food brands. "The Chinese have been discovering fast food and it's such a vast market -- Starbucks, McDonald's... and pizza has hit China," he said.

6. John Lundgren, Stanley Black & Decker, $32.6 million

Compensation raise: 253 percent

"The way McDonald's has reinvented itself, adapted its menus, added healthy options, expanding the times of day it can be visited, for example oatmeal for breakfast... that allied with growth in developing markets has really helped that brand."Nineteen of the top 100 brands came from emerging markets, up from 13 last year.

7. Brian Roberts, Comcast, $31 millio

Compensation raise: 14 percent

Facebook entered the top 100 at number 35 with a brand valued at $19.1 billion, while Chinese search engine Baidu rose to number 29 from 46.

8. Robert Iger, Walt Disney, $28 million

Compensation raise: 30 percent

Toyota reclaimed its position as the world's most valuable car brand, as it recovered from a bungled 2010 product recall. The survey was carried out before the March earthquake that caused massive disruption to Japanese supply chains.

9. Alan Mulally, Ford Motor, $26.5 million

Compensation raise: 48 percent

The total value of the top 100 brands rose by 17 percent to $2.4 trillion, as the global economy shifted to growth.Millward Brown takes as a starting point the value that companies put on their own main brands as intangibles in their earnings reports.

10. Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner, $26.1 million

Compensation raise: 35 percent

It combines that with the perceptions of more than 2 million consumers in relevant markets around the world whom it surveys over the course of the year, and then applies a multiple derived from the company's short-term future growth prospects.