NEW York – CoreBrand has released its second annual "Brand Respect: The Most and Least Respected Corporate Brands” study and according to Marketing Daily, big soda gets the most love in the study, which is based on data from an ongoing survey of around 10,000 business decision-makers from the top 20% of U.S. businesses.

In CoreBrand’s study, companies with both high familiarity and favorability are defined as most respected, while brands that have strong familiarity but lowest favorability are respect laggards. This year’s study has Coca-Cola in the top spot, followed PepsiCo at number two.

Jim Gregory, CoreBrand's CEO, said in a statement that high respect among industry executives translates to trust among consumers and stakeholders. The study also shows that while Coke and Pepsi are on top, their favorability is actually down as people become more health-conscious. The top ten list of most respected businesses also includes Hershey, Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Harley-Davidson, IBM, Apple, Kellogg and General Electric.

The number one least respected company in the study was Delta Airlines (only three airlines had high enough familiarity measures to be considered in the study). Rounding out the 10 least respected brands were H&R Block, Big Lots, Denny's, Best Buy, Rite Aid, J.C. Penney, Capital One Financial, Family Dollar and Sprint Nextel.