Methodology: The Brands that Defined 2018

Morning Consult’s “The Brands That Defined 2018” uses interviews with over 1.5 million American adults from Q1 2018 to early Q4 2018.

The data comes from Morning Consult’s flagship brand-tracking software, Brand Intelligence, which surveys between 5,000-10,000 American consumers 18+ every day on over 2,000 brands and products. For more information on Brand Intelligence, and the data used in this report, go here. 

Along with tracking general consumer sentiment (all adults), Brand Intelligence tracks over 100 demographic variables, including income, age, location, party affiliation, and more.

Below is more specific information for each section:

The Most Loved Brand: The Most Loved Brands is a reflection of key metrics that go into how consumers positively perceive brands and is calculated by summing total favorability, total trust, total perceived positive community impact, and admired employer. Brands that were not tracked since January 1st, 2018 are not shown.

The geographic data uses net favorability in which respondents were asked, “Do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of the following?”

The Brand Most People Told Their Friends About: Respondents were asked “How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?” They were given a scale of 1-10, with 10 being extremely likely. Brands were then ranked in terms of the largest share of respondents who said either 9 or 10.

The Brand on the Rise: When asked if they have a favorable impression of each brand, respondents are also given the option to say they are unfamiliar the brand, allowing Intelligence to track the percentage of consumers who recognize each brand (brand ID). For this section brands were ranked by the share of adults who recognized each brand in October 2018, minus those who recognized each in January 2018 – demonstrating the growth over the year.

The Brand Most People Wanted to Buy From: Respondents were asked “How likely are you to consider purchasing a product or service from…” Brands were ranked according the share of respondents who answered either “absolutely certain” or “very likely.”

The Most Admired Employer: Respondents were asked “Thinking about your current or most recent job, would you be proud to have a similar job at the following…” Brands were ranked by the share who of respondents who answered yes.

Lessons Learned: Each of the findings in this section are drawn on previously released reports. Methodology is available in each report linked out on the main landing page.

Members of the press interested in more information on any aspect of this page can email press@morningconsult.com

 

Updated: Added in language to clarify factors that went into determining the Most Loved Brand.

Morning Consult