Technology, media and web-based
companies dominate the list of brands consumers list as the “most influential,” indicating how important the technological world has become to everyday lives.
Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon, Facebook and eBay dominate the top 10 list of companies deemed by U.S. consumers to be most influential, based on surveys that rate companies
according to several different categories including corporate citizenship, engagement, trustworthiness, innovation and presence, according to new research from Ipsos.
“Our
daily lives are infused with the integration of web, technology and media and these brands allow us to access, gather and share information with tremendous ease,” says Jerry Forristal, senior
vice president at Ipsos MarketQuest. “That in turn helps to influence our daily decisions. And with the proliferation of smartphones, tablets and similar mobile devices, we’re able to take
these brands and their influence almost everywhere we go.”
While it’s not surprising so many influential brands come from the technology and web-based worlds, the other
companies that populate the top 10 for the U.S. (Visa, Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble) demonstrate how all brands can be influential in consumers’ lives.
“Many
of the brands out there are companies that are very high on trust, and have very strong futures,” Forristal tells Marketing Daily. “There are lots of different ways of becoming
influential. Visa’s [strength] is that they’re everywhere. You can go everywhere in the world and people trust it implicitly.”
Procter & Gamble, meanwhile, was
cited for being able to understand consumers’ needs, Forristal says. Wal-Mart, meanwhile, has a presence unmatched by others in the brick-and-mortar world, while Yahoo and eBay are very skilled
at engaging their customers.
Outside of the U.S. (the surveys were conducted in nine markets, including Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, UK, France, Germany, and China),
Google continued to dominate, showing how influential and widespread the brand has become.
“A lot of people still think of [Google] as search, but they’re so much
more than that,” Forristal says. “Building a truly influential brand requires a significant time investment, and in the past fifteen years, Google has done something truly phenomenal
– they’ve built a brand that exerts global influence.”
The others on the top 10 global list include Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Visa, Coca-Cola,
Samsung, YouTube, MasterCard and P&G.