In the US, Apple is king of brand names; around the rest of the world, however, it’s all Google.  brandchannel.com is branding its 2005 poll and saying that the top known brands in the U.S. aren’t Coca Cola and Guess Jeans, nope, it ain’t 1985 anymore. This list has got Target (4), Starbucks (3), Google (2), and the fruit of the tree, Apple at number one for the US. Google and Apple do a swap for the global market with Skype, Starbucks, and Ikea rounding out the top five.

What did it for Apple last year? The iPod, of course, but also branding it’s OS X operating system by its code name. Tiger made Apple high on the radar list for people as well as did the iMac. Mac mini was a huge help in getting Apple into the number one spot as well. In all, Apple’s name recognition is back on the top and with the Intel versions of Macs soon to spill into the market, Apple has a great chance of getting that global number one spot, too!

[Via the Mac Observer]

[tags]apple,brand name,number one[/tags]