In a recent poll by online magazine brandchannel.com, readers were asked to identify which brands had the greatest impact on their lives, and how these brands affected their behaviour and overall view of the world.

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The survey of almost 2000 readers from 107 countries was conducted online between February 24 and March 9 and came up with some rather interesting results.

For example, according to the survey, the Apple brand has the “biggest impact on the world’s consumers”, while at the other end of the popularity spectrum, Microsoft and the United States nation brand are those considered most in need of a remake with both receiving the dubious honour of “the brand most readers wanted to argue with”, and the one they most wanted to revamp.

And in more good news for Apple, the creator of the iPod and Mac computer triumphed in six other categories including “most inspiring brand” and the one consumer’s “cannot live without”.

One of the more surprising results from the survey was that hardly any of the respondents thought that there was such a thing as a “green” brand.

This result comes despite millions of dollars spent by some of the world’s biggest companies to rebrand themselves as “environmentally-friendly”.
After Apple, the most inspiring brands were found to be Nike, Coca-Cola, Google and Starbucks.
The same brands, except with Virgin in place of Starbucks, were the brands most readers said they would “like to sit next to at a dinner party”.