This Is the Best Brand in America

Companies and Brands

Published: August 19, 2021 9:30 am

Several research firms put out best brand lists every year. Kantar’s is called the BrandZ Most Valuable Global Brands. Forbes has its own, which also is based largely on financial data. The most recent list comes from Comparably, the workplace culture monitoring company. It is based on surveys of about 200,000 consumers.

Comparably’s data covered a period from August 1, 2020, to August 1 of this year. The rankings were based on these metrics: the quality of the product or service, customer service, return on investment (which it would seem difficult for consumers to compute) and “overall satisfaction with the company, loyalty, and how likely they are to recommend the company to a friend.” Fair enough. It is as good a methodology as any other. Comparably co-founder and CEO Jason Nazar commented, “With the expansion of our platform, we now provide companies with the latest pulse on how they rank with consumers in key brand benchmarks through our proprietary dataset of customer feedback.”

The conclusion about which brand ranked first is fairly shocking. It is Peloton, the exercise equipment company. In May, Peloton recalled its Tread+ and Tread treadmills, after resisting the action pressed by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The problem with the treadmills had caused a number of injuries and, according to The New York Times, “one death of a child.” John Foley, the chief executive of Peloton, said it was “the right thing to do,” although it took some time to come to that conclusion.

The balance of the top 10 brands on the Comparably list makes more sense. They include Amazon, Apple, Chick-fil-A, Costco, Google, Netflix and Nike. Most of these brands are found near the top of other lists of best or most valuable brands.

Here are Comparably’s top 20 best brands for 2021: