Sony Retains Number One Position in The Harris Poll Annual
Best Brand" Survey for Third Year in a Row
Dell (#2), Ford (#3), Kraft (#4), and Coca-Cola (#5) take next four places

by Humphrey Taylor

The Harris Poll's latest annual survey results on "best brands" show Sony listed in the number one position, picked by more people than any other brand. Sony tops the list for the third year in a row, and for the fifth time in seven years. In the eight years since Harris Interactive began asking this question, Sony has never been lower than third. No other brand comes close to matching this record.

Dell moves up to second place, after having just failed to make the top ten last year, and occupying the #5 slot in the year 2000.

Ford, which has always been one of the top four brands, slips from second to third place. Kraft, which has never made the top ten list previously, is now number four, and Coca-Cola moves up from number six to number five in the ranking.

The others which are mentioned most frequently as "best brands" are General Electric (#6, down from #3 last year), Pepsi-Cola (#7), Tide (#8), Honda (#9) and General Motors (#10), down from #5 last year. Pepsi-Cola, Tide and Honda did not make the top ten list last year. And this is the first time that Kraft, Tide and Honda have ever made the top ten rankings.

These are the results of The Harris Poll of 2,050 adults, surveyed online between June 20 and June 26, 2002, using the same methods used by Harris Interactive to forecast the 2000 elections with great accuracy.

Industry Comparisons

This year, as was true last year, three of the top ten brands are automobile manufacturers (Ford, GM and Honda).

Last year, five of the top ten brands were manufacturers of electronics. This year, only two of the top ten (Sony and GE) are electronics companies, as IBM, Hewlett Packard and RCA all drop off the list, along with Microsoft. These changes may reflect the fact that much of the glamour has gone out of the electronics industry.

This year, four of the top ten brands represent consumer products: Coca-Cola, Kraft, Pepsi-Cola and Tide. Last year only Coca-Cola made it to the top ten. This change may reflect the growing appeal of the "old economy" as opposed to dot-coms, electronics and telecom companies.

The Linkage of Corporate Reputation and Brand Image

This poll underlines the very strong linkage between corporate reputation and brand image. Eight of the top ten brands (Kraft and Tide are the exceptions) are also companies. Furthermore, large majorities of all those who pick most of these top ten brands as one of the best say that "the reputation of, and what you know about, the company that makes that product or service" is "very important."

The two exceptions to this rule are Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola where less than half of those who pick them as among the best brands feel that what they know about the company is "very important."

Humphrey Taylor is the chairman of The Harris Poll, Harris Interactive.

NOTE: These are spontaneous replies. Respondents are not read or shown a list of names.

*=Not in top ten.

"When you think about why (BRAND MENTIONED AS TOP BRAND) is a top brand, how important is the reputation of, and what you know about, the company that makes that product or provides that service?"

__________________________

*=Less than 0.5%.

NOTES:

1. Question not asked about Tide as it is not, and never was, a company.
2. Question was asked about Kraft, even though it is a subsidiary of Philip Morris because for many years it was a company and is still a separate division.

Methodology

This issue of The Harris Poll was conducted online within the United States between June 20 ­ 26, 2002 among a nationwide cross section of 2,050 adults. Figures for age, sex, race, education, income and region in the household were weighted where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population. "Propensity score" weighting was also used to adjust for respondent’s propensity to be online.

In theory, one can expect that 95 percent of surveys with probably samples of this size would produce results that were within plus or minus 2 percentage points of what they would be if the entire adult population had been polled using the same methods. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (non-response), question wording and question order, interviewer bias, weighting by demographic control data and screening (e.g., for likely voters). It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors. Furthermore, this online survey did not use a probability sample.

These statements conform to the principles of disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

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Q607, Q609, Q610, Q615, Q620, Q625

COPYRIGHT 2002 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
ISSN 0895-7983