Hollywood’s earnings narrative may be all about cuts, but the brand-value story just turned more optimistic. Interbrand’s 2026 Best Global Brands report shows entertainment has overtaken automotive to become the world’s second-most-valuable sector, with cumulative brand value of $332.5 billion, up 12.4% year on year.
The rising total matters because it captures something subscriber reports and quarterly ad tallies often miss: the long-term equity entertainment platforms are building with consumers. That equity is now worth more than the auto sector’s collective brand value, even as carmakers push into software and mobility.
The numbers
- $332.5B cumulative value for entertainment brands, up 12.4% year on year.
- 22% growth in Netflix’s brand value, placing it 23rd globally.
- 7th and 10th for Instagram and YouTube, the only entertainment brands in the global top ten.
- 35th and 39th for Sony and Spotify, respectively.
Interbrand’s overall list remains led by Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Samsung. Gaming brands such as Nintendo and PlayStation also increased their brand values.
Netflix as the case study
Netflix’s 22% rise is the most interesting data point for streaming observers. Interbrand links the gain to the company’s expansion into live entertainment, sport and advertising. That should be useful context after Wall Street pressure over its latest financials and engagement debates.
For streamers, it suggests the market may be over-indexing on short-term usage and under-indexing on the asset value of being a default entertainment brand. Subscriber counts explain the present; brand strength is a leading indicator of pricing power and retention.
Brand is the new scale
Interbrand CEO Gonzalo Brujó frames the report around a shift in competitive advantage.
“Growth comes not from doing more, but from making stronger choices about where and how a brand creates value.”
Brujó also argues that as AI reshapes creation, distribution and consumption, technology alone will become a weaker source of differentiation. The winning brands will identify new arenas for growth and give people reasons to come back, building habits rather than moments.
What media planners should watch
Ad-supported streaming and live sport are two arenas Interbrand singles out in Netflix’s rise. For buyers, that means platform brand strength should influence where ad budgets go, not just CPMs and audience guarantees. A stronger brand tends to command higher engagement, lower churn and more pricing power over time.
The practical takeaway is to treat brand momentum as a planning input. Weight spend and partnership decisions toward platforms and formats that create return visits, not just one-off spikes. Entertainment is becoming a brand-led habits business, and the gap between that model and a pure content-library model is what the next few years will be about.
Source: Deadline
