Harris Poll EquiTrend: Yahoo! News Named News Service Brand of the Year

National Geographic Magazine takes General Interest Brand of the Year honor; Real Simple, Money Magazine, and The Economist also lead their categories.

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Oct 17, 2012, 07:09 ET

NEW YORK, Oct. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- While every American consumer makes an individual choice of which media source to read for their daily news, the collective opinion is in: Yahoo! News is the 2012 Harris Poll EquiTrend® News Service Brand of the Year. The free, online news service performed well on equity metrics such as Fit, Trust, and Positive Emotional Connection—psychological components which reflect internal decision-making more than external decision-making—are indicative of a highly personalized relationship between a news service organization and its consumers. Harris Poll EquiTrend is an annual brand health assessment of over 1,500 product, service, and lifestyle brands from Harris Interactive.

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Yahoo! News makes its debut appearance in Harris Poll EquiTrend's News Service category this year; it and nine other newcomers join three veteran brands: Associated Press (AP), Reuters, and United Press International (UPI). "We expanded the News Service category to reflect the abundance of media choices facing consumers. These inclusions let us monitor a bigger slice of the market and see how well the veteran brands perform against new rivals," says Jill Gress, Vice President, Harris Interactive. "Overall, AP is holding strong; however our Brand Momentum metric gives us a hint as to which brands may be contenders next year." Google News has the top Brand Momentum score this year, followed by Yahoo! News, AP, USA Today, BBC News, and CNN Online.

In addition to overall news service organizations, Harris Poll EquiTrend also measures and awards Brand of the Year distinctions in four magazine categories: General Interest Magazine, Women's Magazine, Business Magazine, and Weekly News Magazine.

General Interest: National Geographic Well Ahead of All Other Brands

For the second consecutive year, National Geographic Magazine is the General Interest Magazine Brand of the Year in the Harris Poll EquiTrend study. Reader's Digest Magazine and AARP The Magazine follow in this category, along with the somewhat less familiar Wired Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly Magazine.

National Geographic Magazine achieved the highest Quality score of any magazine brand measured in the 2012 study. "National Geographic has a long, rich legacy in print, and we are seeing that brand equity play out in broadcast media too," says Gress. In addition to magazines, Harris Poll EquiTrend measures television networks and channels. Though neither is a 2012 Brand of the Year, National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo WILD both had above average Equity scores in the Topical Interest TV Programming category. Each channel's strong performance is carried by an outstanding Quality score, exceeded only by the Quality score for the History Channel—the 2012 Brand of the Year in that category—and Discovery Channel.

"The consistently excellent performance of the umbrella National Geographic brand across both magazine and broadcast categories is a testament to the critical role quality plays in the media and the value Americans place on it," adds Gress.

Real Simple Leads Women's Magazine Category

Launched in 2000 by Time, Inc. and known for its tidy editorial style, Real Simple Magazine is the inaugural Women's Magazine Brand of the Year. Southern Living Magazine and Hallmark Magazine are the closest contenders in this crowded, new Harris Poll EquiTrend category.

Among the many Harris Poll EquiTrend brand equity measures, Real Simple Magazine placed highest in Purchase Consideration, as well as Fit—an essential metric that assesses how well a product matches consumers' lifestyles.

Business and Weekly News: Money Magazine and The Economist are Alone in Outperforming Category Averages

When it comes to business and weekly news magazines, Money Magazine and The Economist are the only two brands to rank above their respective category averages, earning each of them the 2012 Harris Poll EquiTrend Brand of the Year distinction.

About Harris Poll EquiTrend®
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 January 31 through February 20, 2012 and analyzes the responses of over 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 EquiTrend study regularly since 1989, and can offer yearly trended data from 2005. The Equity Score, a key take-away from EquiTrend, has been validated against financial performance by Georgetown University.

These statements conform to the principles of disclosure of the National Council on Public polls.

The Harris Poll EquiTrend study results disclosed in this release may not be used for advertising, marketing or promotional purposes without the prior written consent of Harris Interactive.

Product and brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

For a complete listing of all the brands covered in the study, contact Corporate Communications at 212-539-9600 or [email protected].

About Harris Interactive
Harris Interactive is one of the world's leading market research firms, leveraging research, technology and business acumen to transform relevant insights into actionable foresight. Known widely for the Harris Poll and for pioneering innovative research methodologies, Harris offers proprietary solutions in the areas of market and customer insight, corporate brand and reputation strategy, and marketing, advertising, public relations and communications research. Harris possesses expertise in a wide range of industries including health care, technology, public affairs, energy, telecommunications, financial services, insurance, media, retail, restaurant, and consumer package goods. Additionally, Harris has a portfolio of multi-client offerings that complement our custom solutions while maximizing our client's research investment. Serving clients in more than 196 countries and territories through our North American and European offices, Harris specializes in delivering research solutions that help us – and our clients – stay ahead of what's next. For more information, please visit www.harrisinteractive.com.

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