iPhone becomes ?Britain’s coolest brand’

Apple’s iPhone has, for the first time, hit first place in Superbrands’ annual list of the 500 coolest brands in the UK.

The hugely popular smartphone managed to knock Aston Martin off the top spot for the first time in three years, switching first and second place with the British sportscar manufacturer.

Apple’s dominance of the CoolBrands 500 continued beyond first place, as the Apple brand itself emerged once again in third place, while the iPod brand jumped 36 places to hit fourth.

The list of 500 cool brands is brought together by independent research from The Centre for Brand Analysis, surveying what the group terms as ‘influential opinion formers’, as well as the British public. The CoolBrands survey reached out to 2,500 respondents, and has been annually measuring brand trends since 2001.

Technology companies continue to dominate the CoolBrands list, as nine of the top ten remain technology or internet brands. BBC’s iPlayer, meanwhile, has entered the list for the first time in twentieth place.

Stephen Cheliotis, Chairman of the CoolBrands council, refuted the seemingly flippant nature of a cool-list.

“Aston Martin has finally lost its top spot in the rankings but only just,” he said. “In fact, considering cool is seen to be very fluid and changeable, the top twenty shows remarkable consistency with 15 of last year’s top twenty in there again.

“Equally, most of the category winners are the same,” he said. “So much for cool being a fleeting thing.”

Meanwhile in the console race, Nintendo climbed to fifth place; the company’s highest position yet, while PlayStation leapfrogged the Xbox brand, with both hitting tenth and eleventh place respectively.

1. iPhone (up one place)
2. Aston Martin (down one)
3. Apple (same position)
4. iPod (up 36 places)
5. Nintendo (up two places)
6. YouTube (down one place)
7. BlackBerry (up 16 places)
8. Google (down two places)
9. Bang & Olufsen (down five places)
10. PlayStation (up five places)
11. Xbox (up 28)
12. Tate Modern (down two)
13. Dom Perignon (down two places)
14. Virgin Atlantic (down two places)
15. Ferrari (down two places)
16. Sony (same position)
17. Mini (up 11 places)
18. Vivienne Westwood (up 23 places)
19. Rolex (down ten places)
20. BBC iPlayer (New entry)