International research agency, Millward Brown, have just announced the 2008 BrandZ Top 100 Ranking of the World’s Most Powerful Brands based on interviews conducted with over 1 million consumers globally.

(Un)suprisingly, the top 10 looks like this:

1. Google
2. GE (General Electric)
3. Microsoft
4. Coca-Cola
5. China Mobile
6. IBM
7. Apple
8. McDonald’s
9. Nokia
10. Marlboro

Google has firmly established itself as the most powerful brand in the world, incredible when you consider that the company only went public in late 2004. This follows on the back of more good news for Google which recently announced record revenues of $5.19 billion and a 30% increase in Q1 profits. In the UK, Google is forecast to earn more ad revenue than the national newspaper sector and ITV1 this year for the first time.

And as if that isn’t enough of an indicator of where you should be investing your free cash, technology companies stole the show this year with 28 of the top 100 companies coming from the technology sector.

You can download and read the full report here.