2020’s most loved brands in online and offline conversations each dropped down a spot last year, replaced by American Family and Carter’s, respectively. Here’s how other brands fared in an analysis [press release] of top brands by Engagement Labs.
In examining more than 650 US consumer brands across various industry sectors and categories, the rankings of the most loved brands are “based on net positive conversations happening online (via social media) and offline (via face-to-face conversations as well as phone, emailing, texting, IM’ing, video chat – in other words, via any channel other than posting on social media)” from Engagement Labs’ proprietary TotalSocial® data.
Carter’s climbed a spot to become the brand with the largest gap between positive and negative offline conversations in 2021, solidifying its ascent after having jumped 13 spots the year prior. Carter’s replaced 2020’s leader, Trader Joe’s, which dropped to second. That brand was recently named the “most relevant” among grocery and drug stores.
The list of most loved brands offline was otherwise dominated by beauty and personal care brands, featuring Dawn at #3, Dove Men+Care at #5, Dove at #6, Gillette at #8, and Nivea at #10. The biggest gainer was Gillette, up 68 spots, with joint #8 Kirkland also enjoying an impressive ascent (+22) up the rankings.
The positive conversations around beauty and personal care come at a time when 4 in 10 Americans are planning to hike their spending on beauty and grooming products. Although people are buying more beauty and personal care products online, this industry’s advertising still skews heavily towards TV and magazines, which may explain these brands’ prominence in the offline conversation rankings.
Among the brands that enjoyed the most positive conversation on social media last year, 2019’s leader American Family retook the #1 spot, after ceding it to Great Value in 2020. American Family was followed by Great Value, Lush (+22 spots), Tripadvisor (+11) and Mary Kay (+8). The only brand on both the online and offline lists was Kirkland, which dropped 3 spots on the online list (to #6) while improving in the offline sentiment rankings.
The biggest improvement in the social media sentiment rankings was Kenmore, which rose 46 spots to the 7th ranking.
