Apple Wins The Business Journals' Top 2011 American Brand Excellence Award

CHARLOTTE, N.C., March 25, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The Business Journals today named Apple, Inc. the 2011 Grand Award winner as part of its eighth-annual American Brand Excellence Awards, which recognize brands that best meet the needs of small- to mid-sized businesses.

The Business Journals also awarded Brand Excellence Awards to companies in six additional business categories:

Business Services: UPS
Financial/Insurance: Visa
Retail: Staples
Technology: Apple
Telecommunications: Verizon Wireless
Travel: Southwest Airlines

"The American Brand Excellence Awards are unique in that they represent how business owners and managers feel about the companies that best support their businesses and help them succeed," said Michael Olivieri, Chief Revenue Officer of American City Business Journals. "This year's winners are true brand leaders and The Business Journals congratulates them on being recognized by the important small and mid-sized business market."

Over 250 business brands were rated and over 2,000 SMB owners and managers participated in The Business Journals' annual proprietary study.  The winning companies were chosen as the brands who best met the needs of small and mid-sized business owners and managers. The criteria used to select the American Brand Excellence Award winners include "easy to do business with," "industry leader," "forward thinking," "for growing companies," "behaves ethically," "growing in popularity" and "has a good price for what you get."  

"Apple has become the premier business brand, and as the leader of the tablet category with the iPad, Apple is redefining how we work," said Godfrey Phillips, VP of Research for The Business Journals. "Our study found that nine percent of business owners currently use an iPad for business."

Portfolio.com, the national business news site for small and mid-sized business executives and a sister outlet to The Business Journals, has published a special feature (http://bit.ly/hDDLOM ) and in-depth interactive component (http://bit.ly/gjcZ27) on the American Brand Excellence Award winners and the overall top 25 brands named as part of The Business Journals' annual study today:

For more information regarding The Business Journals proprietary brand study, please contact Natasha Bullard, Research Analyst (212) 500-0620 [email protected].

About The Business Journals

The Business Journals is the premier media solutions platform for companies strategically targeting business decision makers.  We deliver a total business audience of more than 10 million people via our 42 websites, 64 publications and more than 700 annual industry leading events.

Headquartered in Charlotte, NC, The Business Journals has sales offices in Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.  It is a subsidiary of American City Business Journals, a unit of Advance Publishing, Inc., whose properties include Conde Nast Publications and the Fairchild and Golf Digest Companies.

For more information:
Jeff Sauls
SVP, Marketing & Business Development
(704) 973-1847
[email protected]

SOURCE The Business Journals