Vanguard now tops the field of leading exchange-traded fund providers in favourable impressions among financial advisers, according to a report released by Cogent Research.

This year, 60 per cent of the advisers included in Cogent's study view Vanguard very favourably, more positively than any other ETF provider.

While still the dominant market share leader, iShares now ranks fourth in favourability among current brand users, behind Vanguard, WisdomTree, StateStreet/SPDR and First Trust.

These and other findings are included in the Cogent Research Advisor Brandscape 2012 report, an annual survey of over 1,700 financial advisers across all channels with at least USD5m in assets under management.

“Favourable impression is a key component of brand equity, and is vital to a firm’s potential for future consideration and growth,” says Tony Ferreira, managing director at Cogent Research. “Vanguard’s strong impression scores correlates well with the firm’s recent sales success and our results indicate that the firm is well positioned for future growth.”

Cogent measures favourable impression on an 11-point scale, where zero is “not at all favourable” and 10 is “extremely favourable.” Rounding out the top five ETF providers in terms of overall favourability are State Street/SPDR, PIMCO, and WisdomTree.