• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, August 20, 2021

Amid the current pandemic period, a recent survey of top brands for consumers still has an at-home feel -- and that means lots of video and TV products/services. But what will this mean a year from now?

Comparably, a consumer marketing/brand “reputation” company known for surveying best places to work, revealed that five of the top 10 best brands among consumers are TV/video/entertainment related. But there are few traditional TV-media centric-brands here.

Top on the list is Peloton, which was followed in second place by Netflix. Amazon sits in fifth place, Apple comes in sixth. Google makes ninth. The other five in the top 10: Costco, Chick-fil-A, Nike, Target and Spotify.

Of the top 100 on the list, there is Zoom (12th) and Walt Disney (13th), and then two video-gaming related companies: Roblox (14th) and Nintendo (17th). Instagram is 23rd, Playstation, 31st; and National Geographic, 57th.

In 60th place comes a second traditional media brand HBO, which followed Disney. YouTube takes a surprising low spot, in 75th place. Twitter comes in 90th.

Perhaps an easier analysis is which brand is missing. Where’s Facebook, NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS, ABC Television Network, Fox (both the broadcast network and Fox News Channel); The New York Times, The Washington Post and Warner Bros?

Traditional pay TV providers? You can’t find  Comcast, DirecTV, Charter, or Dish, or some of these companies' video product brands, such as Xfinity, Spectrum, Sling.

Surely, at home services Peloton, Netflix, Amazon makes sense especially in a pandemic time. Since this was Comparably’s first survey of this kind, we have little to compare this to.

Non-media centric brands in the top 20 include Trader Joe’s; In-N-Out Burger; Vans; Headspace, REI and Lego.

Older non-media brands also did well: Colgate Palmolive (39th place); Chanel (28th place), Delta Airlines (21st place); Hershey (42nd place); and Coca-Cola (55th place).

Comparably’s list is based on anonymous results from customers over a 12-month period -- August 1, 2020 through August 1, 2021 -- resulting in data from 200,000 ratings.

Consumers were asked to rate brands in six key areas: Quality of the product or service, customer service, ROI, satisfaction, loyalty, and how likely they are to recommend the company to a friend.

So you might think we'd get a nice mix of “comfort”-oriented, longtime brands consumers are emotionally tied to ties.

Perhaps the more revealing results may be in seeing future trend lines for these brands should we get back to "normal," however it's defined. 

Analysts believe the hybrid at-home/at-work model will be that new normal. At the same time, may have to redefine what is an at-home, video, or media brand. And how consumers embrace them.