UPDATE: This story has been updated with new data. Please see correction below
Google remains Canada’s most influential brand, according to the latest research from Ipsos and the Institute of Communication Agencies. The results of the annual Most Influential Brand study were revealed this afternoon at Advertising and Marketing Week in Toronto.
Google has topped the annual ranking (which is determined by index-scoring survey results) since 2012. It was No. 2 on the list in 2011.
Ipsos polled nearly 6,000 Canadians in December, asking them to assess brands in five ways: “trust,” “presence,” “engagement,” “corporate citizenship” and “leading edge-ness.”
This gave each brand on the list an index score, indicating how they fared against the list average score of 100. So according to Ipsos’ methods, Google indexes at 389 — nearly four times the average brand.
Most Influential Top 10 (with index score)
1. Google (389)
2. Microsoft (293)
3. Facebook (284)
4. Apple (274)
5. YouTube (240)
6. Walmart (233)
7. Visa (227)
8. Tim Hortons (208)
9. Samsung (195)
10. President’s Choice (180)
Of the top-10 brands, Samsung has made the biggest gains, jumping from twentieth on last year’s list to eighth in 2014. It performed especially well on the trust, engagement and “leading edge-ness” responses from those polled.
Samsung’s latest campaign in the U.S.
But even that tremendous surge cannot dent Google’s stranglehold across all polling demographics: the search giant topped the charts across both genders, all geographic regions and age groups.
Brands on Fire
When determining its ranking, Ipsos highlights three “brands on fire” that are not in the top 10 but have performed well year-over-year. Netflix made tremendous gains in the ranking by jumping from 72nd place in 2012 to 36th in 2013 to 18th this year. Like Samsung, it rated well on trust, engagement and leading edge scores.
Twitter is the second “brand on fire,” having jumped 16 places from 40th last year to 24th. LG rounds out the fast-movers list with a jump from 71st to 55th. LG’s place in the ranking has fluctuated greatly since Ipsos began the study. In 2011 it hit 64th, then jumped to 40th in 2012.
Want more info on Ipsos and ICA’s Top 10 Most Influential Brands of 2014? Check out the February/March issue of Marketing, on Newsstands Feb. 4.
CORRECTION: The original version of this story used out-of-date data to first report the rankings of the Most Influential Brand study. This resulted in some companies being placed incorrectly in the Top 10. Marketing regrets the error.
