Apple Edges Google as Top Brand

Arabic media channel Al Jazeera has been voted the world’s fifth most influential brand in a poll of branding professionals that gave the top slot to U.S. iPod and computer icon Apple.In the survey of almost 2,000 ad executives, brand managers and academics by online magazine Brandchannel, Apple ousted search engine Google from last year’s top spot, but the surprise to many will be Al Jazeera’s entry into the top five.

“With all the news from Iraq and Afghanistan and the ‘war on terror’, a lot of people are really tuned into the news, and the major news sources have a western bias,” Brandchannel Editor Robin Rusch said.