Friends Reunited tops list of UK new-media brands

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Philip Smith,

September 02, 2003

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Friends Reunited tops list of UK new-media brands

LONDON - Friends Reunited has taken the top spot in Revolution's first digital top 40 of new-media brands, produced in association with NOP World.

Steve Pankhurst, co-founder of , said: "After a fantastic couple of years for the site, it's great to be recognised in this way. We have always tried to keep the Friends Reunited brand pure and simple and to ensure the customer feels they are having a fun experience that is value for money."

Brands were initially judged for usage and awareness, and then measured against six criteria: innovation, value, customer care, visibility, reliability and longevity.

Other brands that complete the top 10 are: Tesco.com, Amazon.co.uk, BBCi, Google, eBay.co.uk, Ask Jeeves, BT, EasyGroup/EasyJet and Sky.

Simon Cheshire, director at NOP World, commented: "The top 10 brands are a fascinating mix of old and new. Visibility appears to be coming in part from strong promotional spend, but it's clearly just as -- if not more -- important to create a word-of-mouth experience."

NOP World's e-Omnibus survey, a regular online study which polls 1,000 respondents who are representative of weekly UK internet users, generated the feedback for the top 40.

To compile the list, Revolution and NOP World drew up an initial shortlist of 70 consumer-facing brands, which used digital as their main route to market. Further data from NOP World's Internet User Profile Study was used to narrow the list down to 50 of the most prominent. These 50 brands were then included in the survey.

Mean scores were calculated for each of survey's six branding criteria and then averaged out to provide an overall rating for each brand.

A report on the survey is in the current (September) issue of Revolution.

1. Friends Reunited

2. Tesco.com

3. Amazon.co.uk

4. BBCi

5. Google

6. eBay

7. Ask Jeeves

8. BT

9. Easy.com

10. Sky.com