Just because people are familiar with a brand doesn’t mean that the brand is well-liked or well-respected. And if a relatively few people like a brand but it is not familiar to a wider population, that is fine if the brand is geared toward a niche crowd. J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP) may be an example of the former and Tiffany & Co. (NYSE: TIF) an example of the latter.

Brand consulting firm CoreBrand has just released its list of the world’s 10 most respected brands based both on a high familiarity index and a high favorability index. The firm measures familiarity on a scale of 1 to 5 and respondents are considered to be familiar with a brand if they know more than just the company’s name. Favorability is based on overall reputation, perception of the company’s management and a company’s investment potential rankings made by those respondents who were familiar with the brands.

Corebrand sorted out the top 100 based on familiarity scores and then sorted those by the highest favorability score to get the most respected brands. Here is the ranking using the company’s full name:

1. The Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO)
2. PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE: PEP)
3. The Hershey Co. (NYSE: HSY)
4. Bayer A.G.
5. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ)
6. Harley-Davidson Inc. (NYSE: HOG)
7. International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM)
8. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL)
9. Kellogg Co. (NYSE: K)
10. General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE)

Of the 10 brands, only PepsiCo and IBM have familiarity scores below 90, which Corebrand attributes to the repositioning of the companies as a beverage and snack food company and a business services company, respectively.

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo were tied last year, but Coca-Cola held the top spot alone this year even though both companies lost ground in favorability scores. Coke just lost a little less.

IBM, Apple and GE are new to the list this year, while Campbell Soup Co. (NYSE: CPB), Colgate-Palmolive Co. (NYSE: CL) and Esteé Lauder dropped out of the top 10.

ALSO READ: America’s Ten Most Familiar Brands

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