NEW YORK -- In the inaugural year for the Convenience Store Brand of the Year, Speedway takes the top spot, followed by Arco am/pm and 7-Eleven in the 2012 Harris Poll EquiTrend (EQ) study, which surveyed Americans about brands across several retail segments, revealing which brands prompted them to open their hearts--and consequently--their pocketbooks.
While consumers are most familiar with 7-Eleven, Speedway's top scores for quality and purchase consideration led to its highest ranking in this category.
With the rising price of fuel, where Americans go to gas up is more important than ever. This year marks the first time Harris has included Costco in its EquiTrend retail gasoline category. The brand takes the top spot, debuting as the Gasoline Retail Brand of the Year. Costco supplants Speedway, which was the top-ranked brand for the last three years. Other brands scoring above average in brand equity include Hess, Shell, Sam's Club, Sunoco, Speedway, Arco, ExxonMobil, and Chevron. While Shell enjoys the highest Familiarity in the category, Costco Gasoline boasts the highest Quality and Purchase Consideration among its competitive set.
Although general merchandisers such as Walmart, Target, Costco and Kmart have rolled out value pharmacy departments, American consumers indicate they are more likely to purchase from more traditional drug stores like Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid, according to the 2012 Harris Poll EquiTrend study. In fact, Walgreens takes the top spot as EquiTrend's first-ever Drugstore Brand of the Year, while CVS and Rite Aid came in second and third, respectively, in this new category for 2012. Top scores for Familiarity and Purchase Consideration boosted Walgreens to the top.
In the Value Retailer category, Target is once again the Value Retail Brand of the Year, surpassing Walmart. While this is just the second year of this award category, in 2007 Target supplanted Walmart in overall Retailer rankings, and has maintained its lead ever since. Top scores for all three elements of brand equity--familiarity, quality and purchase intention--drove this strong performance.
Harris Poll EquiTrend is a leading brand equity tracking study conducted by Harris Interactive that measures and compares brand health for more than 1,500 brands. The study was conducted online from Jan. 31 through Feb. 20, 2012 and analyzes the responses of more than 38,500 consumers on key measures of brand health--including how well the public knows a brand, how positively they think of the brand and their consideration to do business with or donate to a brand. Each brand is rated 1,000 times among respondents who are familiar with the brand. Harris Interactive has conducted its Harris Poll EquiTrend study regularly since 1989. The Equity Score has been validated against financial performance by Georgetown University.
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