Brandweek has published their ranking of The Top 2000 American Superbrands, and it’s a real head-scratcher. Relying on a suspect “methodology” that is based on many factors, but highly weighted toward ad spending, here are their Top 5 American Superbrands:

1. AT&T
2. McDonalds
3. Verizon
4. Macy’s
5. Sprint

The problem is, they are trying to quantify what a “Superbrand” is, and their numbers may add up, but not to anything that a consumer would recognize. This is the same fallacy that leads focus-group decision making toward weak names that have the ability to excite statisticians, but not people. For instance, if you look just at press, word-of-mouth buzz, overflowing retail stores, people lining up to buy their products, advertising and general cultural ubiquity, most people would agree that Apple should probably score very highly on a  list of Superbrands. That, however, is not the case here.

The only two Apple products in the Top 100 are “Apple Macintosh Computer Systems” at number 86, and “Apple iPod Digital Audio Player-Recorder” at number 91. No clear reason why other entries are for a company, while for Apple they are for individual products — certainly “Apple” as a company entity would rank pretty highly on a rational list of top U.S. and international brands. Not only that, but some of the “Superbrands” that outrank Apple include, “Chevrolet Silverado Trucks” (32) (maybe Brandweek intends “Superbrand” to be understood in the same sense that Superfund is), “Empire Today Home Repair Services” (55), E-Surance Insurance-Auto (66), and in a head-to-head deathmatch of the brand titans, PeoplePC Website Internet Service Provider (90)!

It’s not like we’re trying to fluff up Apple, or join the iBandwagon, or drink their KoolAid, but whether you love ‘em or hate ‘em, you have to admit that Apple is a very powerful brand, and any list of “Superbrands” that puts them well behind the Chevy Silverado, a dinosaur facing extinction, and “Empire Today Home Repair Services,” makes you wonder if the statisticians who figured all this out might be the same ones who recently lost their jobs in the financial sector after failing to notice the tsubprime tsunami.

May the debate on Apple and religion continue. From Sunday Mass to Sunday Mac. Communion to Computer. All Mighty God to All Mighty Mouse. Eve’s real Apple. Circulating discussions about Appelism, the Apple Church, and various other religious exchanges on the overall Apple faith merely scratch the surface of an increasingly monopolistic Apple Inc. kingdom to sweep the Altars.

It is safe to note that Apple Inc., at the forefront of the digital world, continues to redefine “sacred time” — keeping designers, video monkeys and other creative worker bees at their office cubes working those iApps on their iMacs, with the iTunes from their iPods ringing in their iEars, occassionally interrupted by calls on their iPhones with their little iFingers clicking-beeping-tapping-buzzing-chatting away in their own little iWorld created by some iGod.

One can only imagine the iChurch, iCar, iFood, and then of course the line of pharmaceutical iDrugs to cure the iPsycho, iCrazy, iLost, iConfused illnesses.

But we’re not complaining. We’ve already drunketh from the grail of iCoolAid. Cheers.

“Insert the proprietary Landor Naming Process Tool into the anal canal and twist until it grabs the membrane. Continue twisting another half turn, then steadily pull the proprietary Landor Naming Process Tool out of the canal. Extract 10 inches of membrane, tie the membrane off and cut.”

As with any process, the only true measure of success is what comes out the other end.

Says Blandor the Imponderable: “Oh deer! Perhaps I should butt out….No! My auricular has been opened, laid bare for all to observe! This time, no amount of blandiloquence will assuage this insolent corporate sabotage! And furthermore, we use a much larger mammal in our current work”

San Francisco (our fair city) has placed an initiative on this November’s ballot, to name a sewage facility.

Via AP:

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) — A measure seeking to commemorate President Bush’s years in office by slapping his name on a San Francisco sewage plant has qualified for the November ballot.

The measure certified Thursday would rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

Supporters say the idea is to commemorate the mess they claim Bush has left behind by actions such as the war in Iraq.

The marketing geniuses at Neutrogena, realizing how crowded the women’s skin care product sector is, have started selling vibrators. But not just any vibrator, a vibrator that a woman can, with head held high, take through airport security, buy at the drugstore, and leave in plain sight for the kids to find. Brilliant.

It’s the Neutrogena Wave, a sex toy with plausible deniability built-in.

Here’s to wiggle room:

In one of the worst name changes of ’07, London based Union Jack-offs formally know as Enterprise IG changed their name to…. Brand Union. Naturally they have put everything they have learned as a “world-class global brand agency, comprising 500 people across 21 offices” into the new name and logo.

Next time, maybe they could do a simple competitive analysis. If they had, they may have realized the lack of power the name “Brand Union” has, even within this small sample of their competitors:

Brand-DNA, Brand A, Brand 2.0, Brand Channel, Brand Design, Brand Doctors, Brand Evolve, Brand Evolution, Brand Fidelity, Brand Forward, Brand Institute, Brand Juice, Brand Ladder, Brand Link, Brand Maverick, Brand Mechanics, Brand Meta, Brand People, Brand Positioning, Brand Salt, Brandscape, Brand Scope, Brand Sequence, Brand Slinger, Brand Solutions, Brand Spark, Brand Vista, CoreBrand, Future Brand, Independent Branding, Interbrand, Not Just Any Branding, The Better Branding Company, The Brand Company, The Brand Consultancy, Trading Brands.

Ignorance is a bitch.

If your company or product is in need of a truly shitty “world class name and identity”, you now know where to go.

Or you could get one on sale at Grand Union.

Gizmodo had a devious little idea today, Harass Your Neighbors With Your Wi-Fi Hotspot Name. Poster Jason Chen had the epiphany that his wi-fi hotspot, “doesn’t need to be limited to boring names like LinksysN or 2Wire1969, they can be messages to our neighbors that they see every time they connect to their router.

Some of their router names include:

• YourDaughterIsAWhore
• ThosePeopleIn1583LookLikeTerrorists
• YourWifeCheats
• IPoisonedYourDog
• YourPriusSucks
• ISawYouNaked

If you’re inspired, feel free to add your own suggestions to the comments on this post.