Apple voted coolest brand in UK

The technology company Apple has been voted the coolest brand in the UK.

It beat Aston Martin, which has taken the top spot in six of the previous seven annual CoolBrands surveys.

Online and technology brands performed well, with YouTube pushing Aston Martin into third place. Twitter came fourth, followed by Google and the BBC's iPlayer.

The results are decided by responses from 3,000 consumers and a panel of 39 experts.

Twitter, Skype and Nikon were in the top 20 for the first time in the 11 years of the survey.

Some of the luxury brands have dropped out of the top 20, including Maserati, Ferrari, Chanel, Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen, which all featured last year.

A quarter of the top 20 brands are free to consumers.

"It is interesting that in this age of austerity our perception of cool has increasingly shifted from aspirational, luxury brands to free or more affordable brands that provide us with pleasure," said Stephen Cheliotis, chairman of the CoolBrands expert council.

YouTube was among the biggest risers, having come in tenth place last year.