Apple wins pride of place in this year’s CoolBrands survey

Apple has pipped luxury car manufacturer Aston Martin to the post and won the top spot in this year’s CoolBrands list.

Established from a survey of 3,000 British consumers and a panel of 38 key influences from TV and the music and fashion industries, the top 10 brands on the list were: Apple, Aston Martin, Rolex, Nike. Glastonbury, YouTube, Google, Twitter, Virgin Atlantic and Ray-Ban. Firms that didn’t quite make it to the list included: Mercedes-Benz, Bang & Olufsen, Chanel, Prada, Adidas, BBC iPlayer, Sony, Sony Music, Alexander McQueen and Spotify.

Some digital brands saw a drop in their popularity this year with YouTube, Google and BBC iPlayer all ranking lower than the year before, and no retail brands made it to the top 20.

Stephen Cheliotis, chairman of the CoolBrands Council, said: “While Apple remained number one this year, question marks remain as to how long they might hold this position in the face of an increasingly competitive set of rivals – much will depend on their next few updates and their ability to regain the innovation initiative. Overall the top 20 saw a definite swing back to luxury brands as the affordable everyday brands slipped back. Fashion brands came back to the fore, with sport and music brands becoming more conspicuous.”

He added: “Whether it’s due to strong heritage, product quality or quite simply a correlation with the reviving British economy, this year’s CoolBrands list shows an increasing number of luxury brands are back at the top of the cool list, reversing last years’ trend of affordable everyday luxuries dominating.”

The list is coordinated by The Centre for Brand Analysis, and creates a shortlist of just under 1,200 from 10,000 independently identified brands.