Google’s the best brand! Well, to be more accurate, it’s the favorite online brand. And to add still more qualifications, it’s the favorite online brand of about 36 percent of the people who took part in a JupiterResearch study.
That’s good enough for a win, however (hence the overenthusiastic beginning). Yahoo came in second place, and the margin between it and its Mountain View rival was surprisingly small – just four percent.
Amazon, eBay, MySpace, Microsoft, AOL, and Apple came next, and in that order. Forgive the quickness with which they’re mentioned, but although these are powerful corporations, they became little more than also-rans in this competition.
What’s interesting is the analysis provided by Greg Sterling. “Segmented by age, MySpace rose in popularity to near parity with Google and Yahoo among younger adults,” he wrote for Search Engine Land. “[T]hose 55 and older expressed a stronger preference for Google vs. Yahoo. Men preferred Google, while women preferred Yahoo.”
Furthermore, “Google was quite popular with Apple fans, as was Amazon, but fared its worst with users of MySpace and AOL.” Now that’s odd – the MySpace bit, I mean.
I don’t think of myself as a real “brand” guy – as long as price and quality are taken into account, one shirt, one shoe, or one whatever is generally as good as the next to me. But in the online world, there are clearly winners and losers, and Google has yet again distinguished itself as one of the former.
