Justin Mungal
Lately, I find that data visualizations are more eye-catching than attention-grabbing. Complex color schemes on maps draw in the eye, but there is nothing to maintain attention for the purposes of learning something new, as the informative details of the data cannot be distilled from the image alone. My favorite example of visualization eye-candy is the red and blue mapping of American states according to their political leaning. 
The image is attention grabbing, but the real learning takes place at the county level, and still, the true understanding of county level data needs to be coupled with county population levels for an accurate understanding of voter geography. In essence, the graphic distorts the reality of voters’ geographical dispersion and therefore impedes my trust of the source and any other data they may present.
My slightly jaded attitude towards eye-catching images was unhinged by a recent attention-grabbing visualization of the world’s most popular brands by country. 
The visualization depicts a smattering of the most valuable brands across the globe by country. The color scheme represents brand strength on a scale of 0 – 100 and the size of the country corresponds with the valuation of the most valuable company for that country.
What I love about the visualization is that at first glance, my attention was grabbed and I immediately started learning. We are so used to hearing about major U.S. brands, that few Americans, including myself, could claim meaningful knowledge of major non-U.S. brands. This image provides a pallet for the eye of major global brands in relation to what the viewer is likely familiar with – American brands. Thusly, the viewer is immediately immersed in a visual exploration of international brand valuation. Note here, that I am presuming the viewer to be American since the chart was produced by an American news media station (MarketWatch). By comparing international brands to familiar U.S. brands one realizes just how dominant the American market is – our companies dwarf those of other countries by fractions of dollar value. The sizing of the countries instantaneously captures this major discrepancy in valuations, although given the size of the image as a whole, it is a bit difficult to fully appreciate the sizing imbalances.
What I most dislike about the graphic is its size. For example, the size of the image not only makes the differences in country size difficult to distinguish, but even makes reading the company names labeled on smaller countries rather unintelligible. Furthermore, the size of the image means that the authors were forced to create a cutoff for which countries would show up at all. I presume that a country needed to have a company worth over $3 billion since the lowest valued company listed is $3.7 billion. Accordingly, no African and few Latin American countries made the cut to be depicted in the visualization. Personally, learning about non-US companies was what grabbed my attention, and so missing out on large chunks of the world was rather disappointing. In this regard, the author seems to have forgotten the audience, Americans, and what would be most insightful to them, namely a thorough exposé of unknown global brands in juxtaposition to well-known U.S. brands.
A redeeming factor for the shortcomings of this visualization is its pairing with a listing of the world’s top ten most valuable companies.
Interestingly, only two non-U.S. companies make it on to (the lower end of) this list. Here, the giants of globalization are named and their dominance by valuation is most well pronounced. Given that the learning point for me was regarding non-U.S. companies, I would have liked to see either an extended list (say top 20) and/or a list of highest valued non-U.S. companies. Again, the authors should have been more sensitive to the fact that their audience is Americans who are well versed in local business but less so and more interested in foreign business affairs (as far as learning something new goes). To that end, it would have been easy for the authors to have allowed the user to scroll down a longer list of companies or to even select a listing of companies by country to provide a deeper dive and visual confirmation of the suggestions of the mapping (that many global brands are small in comparison to top US brands and that many of those non-US top brands are largely unknown to the general American public) for an audience captivated by their first stunning mapping of global company valuations.
References:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-most-valuable-brands-in-the-world-in-one-chart-2017-02-08
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