Apple & Google No Longer Among America’s Best Perceived Brands?

Survey shows Apple and Google are no longer America’s sweethearts..

That’s the title of an article from Quartz.com, published just yesterday.  It’s a brief article, but it lays out clearly just how fickle we Americans are.  Both of these tech giants have been knocked out of the list of the 10 Best Perceived Brands in the US (research done by BrandIndex) .  It was a close call for Google this year, but no cigar:  “Google’s been knocked off the list by Amazon’s double placement: The rival now ranks both as a web retailer (second only to Ford) under its own name and is listed again under its branded e-reader, the Kindle (which, at number 9, beats Cheerios).”

The 10 Best Perceived Brands list, referred to by Quartz, is actually called the “2013 – Top US Buzz Ranking”, as published by BrandIndex, a marketing research agency:
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What a crazy, mixed up list!  It seems like what we perceive as being in and cool is subject to the direction the wind blows these days. While no doubt still offering consumers some of the best personal computing options available, Apple and Google might be getting a little sloppy with the products they offer. They might very well benefit by taking some time to find out why customers are dissing them these days. There’s always room for improvement.