Coca-Cola and Pepsi have earned your respect. Delta Airlines, not so much.
The two biggest cola makers in the world top a survey of the best-known, most respected brands in the business world, performed by CoreBrand, a firm that researches branding and how it impacts businesses.
For the survey, CoreBrand created two lists: One identifying corporations that get the most respect and another for those which get the least amount of respect.
Top of the respected brands list were PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, who actually tied as the most respected corporate brands (perhaps settling an age-old argument, at least for now). Hershey’s, Harley-Davidson, Bayer, Johnson Johnson, Kellogg’s, Campbell’s Soup Company, Colgate-Palmolive, and Estee Lauder followed in descending order.
The least respected brand was Delta Airlines, followed by cigarette maker Phillip Morris. Following in descending order (worst to less worse): HR Block, Denny’s, Big Lots, Best Buy, JCPenney, Capital One, Rite Aid and Foot Locker.
Remember: This survey is about brands, not products, and purposefully gauges the respect among the most popular, well-known brands. According to CoreBrand CEO James Gregory:
“Familiarity has been maintained at a very high level. But there’s been significant pressure on the favorability of these companies, and that’s something that comes and goes.”
So, when it comes to Delta’s low score, Gregory says that there’s a huge gap between how well it is known and how it is perceived.
“You can’t get much higher than the familiarity that they have, but those who know the company don’t have very high favorability attributes associated with the company,” Gregory says. Though he said that there are “signs of life” coming from Delta, “there’s no message coming across that is really taking hold.”
What do you think of the most respected / least respected brands? Also, if you’ve ever flown Delta and had a bad experience, leave us your horror story in the comments below!
[Image: Shutterstock]