BrandChannel readers have picked the top global brands for 2004 in Brandchannel's fourth annual Readers' Choice Awards. This year's winning brands include Apple, Sony, Pixar, Ikea and Al Jazeera.
Apple designed, marketed and iPoded its way to become the Reader's Choice for the brand with the most impact in 2004. Despite its public offering Google was bumped to second after winning the award for the last two consecutive years. Ikea's global expansion lifted it to third as Coca-Cola, the brand cited so often as THE global brand, disappeared entirely from all top five lists.
New to the awards: Australian travel brand Lonely Planet, animation powerhouse Pixar, Swedish fashion's answer to Ikea, H&M and Al Jazeera, which branding professionals now feel has global brand impact alongside powerhouses like Starbucks and Nokia.
Global and regional winners:
Global Asia-Pacific Europe & Central & Latin North
Africa America America
1. Apple* 1. Sony 1. Ikea 1. Cemex 1. Apple
2. Google** 2. Samsung 2. Virgin 2. Corona 2. Google*
3. Ikea* 3. LG* 3. H & M 3. Bacardi 3. Target**
4. Starbucks* 4. Toyota** 4. Nokia** 4. Bimbo 4. Starbucks
5. Al Jazeera 5. Lonely 5. Al Jazeera 5. Vina Concha y 5. Pixar
Planet Toro
* Denotes move up from 2003 / ** Denotes move down from 2003 /
BOLD denotes new to the list
More on the Brandchannel.com Readers' Choice Awards:
The world's leading online magazine about branding, Brandchannel.com presents Readers' Choice Awards annually to the brands that had the most impact (negative or positive) on our lives each year. Branding professionals from 75 countries cast 8,098 votes in the 2004 Readers' Choice survey, which was conducted from November through December 2004.
Voters are allowed to vote for up to five brands per region and complete the demographics section once. No single section is mandatory. Rankings are compiled purely on the basis of readers' choices. Please contact editor Robin Rusch (rrusch@brandchannel.com) for additional information.
Brandchannel (http://www.brandchannel.com) offers a wide array of free resources such as original articles and analysis, industry expert white papers, book reviews, career profiles, a directory of branding professionals, and global listings for conferences, courses and jobs. With 61,000 subscribers and thousands more readers, Brandchannel is an editorially independent endeavor of Interbrand.
