McDonalds, Facebook least popular on Brand Tags website

London, May 30 : McDonalds is 'disgusting', 'greasy' and unhealthy, British Airways is 'expensive' and 'snooty', while Facebook is 'annoying' and a 'waste of time' - these are the words thousands of consumers associated with some of the world's biggest companies on a popular new website called 'Brand Tags'.

The site, set up by Noah Brier of the London-based media strategy firm Naked Communications, compiles all the answers to produce a 'tag cloud' - an instant, visual illustration of how a brand is perceived.

The more times a word or phrase is entered, the bigger it appears in the cloud.

The site, which has already received more than 840,000 tags since it started earlier this month, is fast becoming an outlet for angry shoppers, frustrated with their experience of corporations.

Wal-Mart - which owns the Asda supermarket chain in the UK - is thought of as 'big', 'cheap', 'crap' and 'evil' while energy giants Shell and BP both have 'expensive' as their most prominent tag.

However, not all big brands have provoked negative responses.

Coca-Cola has been tagged 'refreshing', 'delicious' and 'classic', online retailer Amazon is considered 'awesome' and 'convenient', an the Internet encyclopaedia Wikipedia is thought of as a source of 'knowledge', while also being 'unreliable'.

In the survey, British brands tend to come out badly, with the London 2012 Olympics producing particularly negative results.

The Beijing 2008 Games is one of the few brands, which provoke more hostility - with 'boycott', 'controversy', 'Tibet' and 'torture' being the most prominent words in its tag cloud.

Jaguar is one brand associated with the UK and it has provoked positive responses - it is considered 'classy', 'luxury' and 'sleek'.

ANI