Amazon's valuation increased by 52 percent, while other companies that enjoyed 50 percent or more increases in brand value included Netflix (65 percent), Salesforce (58 percent), Adobe (57 percent) and Uber (51 percent).

The six brands with the highest increases in value owe their success primarily to transformations of their business models, rather than revenue growth.

Amazon and Haier are good examples of this.

Amazon's success comes from the success of its service partners, while Haier's comes from the successful transformation of its empowered ecosystem brands within the company's IoT ecosystem.

We can also draw parallels from the transformational journeys of Netflix and Salesforce.

Netflix has shifted its business from DVD rentals to a streaming platform, and Salesforce has moved from being a software vendor to a cloud-based industrial ecosystem.

The common theme is that Netflix, Amazon and Haier, through business model innovations, have created industrial ecosystems where third parties can win.

BrandZ chairman David Roth said, "Brands that want to succeed in the future must understand the value this model could potentially unlock and embrace this model willingly."

Based on a study of the new models, BrandZ has introduced a new category in its 2019 list: the IoT ecosystem.

Haier was the first brand to have been placed in this category, with the company's brand value assessed against the criterion of "an ecosystem consisting of multiple interrelated companies".

Experts reckon that the emergence of the IoT ecosystem as a category could potentially resolve a prolonged headache for analysts.

An IoT ecosystem brand can build an industrial ecosystem through business model innovations, generate ecosystem revenues, break the iron law of diminishing marginal gains, and in turn break through traditional barriers to entry and become a world-class ecosystem brand in the IoT era, some say.