Trader Joe’s and LEGO Come Out on Top for Offline Sentiment, While American Family Insurance and Lush Rank Highest for Online Positivity
Charles Schwab and Sam’s Club Show Most Significant Increase in Brand Love
NEW YORK, NY (March 14, 2023) – Engagement Labs released its sixth annual ranking of America’s “most loved” brands. Trader Joe’s, the American grocery store, ranks first while LEGO, the iconic toy manufacturer, moved up to the second top spot of the list of brands most positively talked about in offline conversations, ahead of more than 650 brands across all consumer categories. Meanwhile, American Family Insurance holds the top position for the most loved brands in online talk, while Lush moved to the number two spot. “The TotalSocial Most Loved Brands this year showcase the enduring, strong emotional bond between consumers and the brands they love. Consumers are passionate about brands, and this generates brand talk. Our TotalSocial data reveals the importance of earning positive talk and recommendations from consumers goes beyond connecting with them and delivering great experiences – brands that deliver become beloved,” said Steven M Brown, president of Engagement Labs. “Our work with Fortune 500 brands has consistently emphasized the importance of cultivating brand love to maximize marketing ROI, and this focus will continue throughout 2023.”- Trader Joe’s is a consistent winner on the TotalSocial Most Loved Brand awards with a sentiment score of 91 and the retailer enjoys a significant competitive advantage. Other supermarkets lag behind at quite a distance earning scores well below Trader Joe’s, including H-E-B (77), Aldi (68), Food Lion (63) and Publix (61).
- American Family Insurance does a great job engaging with consumers online. The company itself, employees and agents share helpful tips to protect your home and in the company’s words “protect your dreams.”
- Charles Schwab’s improvement in offline brand love grew the most last year than any other top brands with 126 rank change. While Sam’s Club rank change increased by 65 moving up to the fourth position for online most loved brands.
The Impact of Online and Offline Conversations on Business Outcomes
Engagement Labs research has demonstrated that online and offline conversations are distinct from one another and usually have no correlation. Despite both types of conversations having an impact that leads to sales and business outcomes, they do so in different ways, necessitating different marketing strategies. According to Engagement Labs’ data and analytics, these consumer conversations drive 19% of all purchases. This has been evidenced in Engagement Labs articles published in the Journal of Advertising Research and the MIT Sloan Management Review. “The adjusted lifestyles and return to normalcy in 2022 are reflected in the brands that appear on our ‘most loved’ list, and in the brand landscape of those that have earned the most positive recommendations and talk from consumers,” said Brown. “In the offline space, Olay, Lysol, Doritos, Charles Schwab, and Bath & Body Works have seen the biggest surge in popularity, while Sam’s Club, OshKosh B’Gosh, and Urban Decay have gained the most significant positive attention online. And let’s celebrate and recognize Trader Joe’s, Lego, Dawn, Dove, Dove Men+Care, American Family, Lush, Express, Clean & Clear, TripAdvisor and Clinique who continue to demonstrate what consumers have engaged with and spoken about with great sentiment over the past year and the prior year.” Marketers aim to achieve more positive conversations, both online and offline, to become “Conversation Commanders,” which are the most successful brands in both conversation arenas. To accomplish this, marketers require two distinct measurement and marketing strategies to ensure that these separate, yet equally important conversations are optimized. By utilizing data and social intelligence, marketers can gain insights into consumer behavior and preferences, which can help drive business goals, such as increased sales and brand loyalty. To learn more about Engagement Labs and how to increase your brand’s consumer conversations in real life and online, reach out at: totalsocial@engagementlabs.com.###
About Engagement Labs Engagement Labs is an industry-leading data and analytics firm that provides social intelligence for Fortune 500 brands and companies. The Company’s patented TotalSocial® platform focuses on the entire social ecosystem by combining powerful online (social media) and offline (word of mouth) data with predictive analytics. Engagement Labs has a proprietary ten-year database of unique brand, industry and competitive intelligence, matched with its cutting-edge predictive analytics that use machine learning and artificial intelligence to reveal the social metrics that increase marketing ROI and top line revenue for its diverse group of clients. To learn more visit www.engagementlabs.com / www.totalsocial.com. About TotalSocial Brand Awards – Most Loved Brands The awards are based on the Company’s proprietary TotalSocial® data and analytics platform, which continuously measures the online and offline social metrics that are proven drivers of business performance. These metrics, including both online and offline conversations against the following major conversation dimensions: net sentiment (the difference in the percent positive conversations minus negative), brand sharing (the extent to which people are sharing or talking about a brand’s marketing or advertising), volume (a measure of how many conversations mention a brand) and influence (the extent to which an influential audience is talking about a brand). The Most Loved Award is given to brands with the highest net sentiment scores online and offline in 2022. For media inquiries please contact: Vanessa Lontoc, VP of Marketing and Sales Operations Engagement Labs
Notably absent from the Top Ten lists versus a year ago are Trivago, Audi, and USAA offline, and Disney World online. Declining interest in travel and automobiles during the pandemic explain these declines.
Why Disney+ Leads and Bests the Other Streaming Competitors
Although Netflix and Amazon earn enormous conversation volume, Disney+ outshines them on the TotalSocial ranker for March to May 2020 due to Disney+ having a more favorable positive-to-negative conversation ratio, and due to the high share of people talking about the brand being socially-connected influencers.
“I can’t think of another brand that literally went from zero to number-one so fast,” said Engagement Labs CEO Ed Keller of Disney+. “The combination of a great brand, a successful holiday season release, and then a pandemic keeping people at home has provided the perfect storm for Disney+ plus to succeed in the streaming marketplace. It’s also notable that while the social media conversation curve quickly flattened for Disney+, the offline curve has plateaued at 40 million conversations per week,” Mr. Keller said. “Online and offline conversation trends frequently diverge, which is why it’s important for marketers to measure both conversation channels.”
Personal Care and Retail Gain
Not all the brands gaining conversation in 2020 are flashy entertainment brands. After Disney+, the biggest offline improvement is for Nivea, which jumped 159th to 3rd on the list, and Colgate which jumped from 43rd to 6th. Online, big gains were registered for drugstore and grocery retailers H-E-B and Publix. These brands are benefiting from consumers’ increased focus on consumer staples, and limited retail options, during the COVID-19 crisis.
For the same reason, we saw some stunning gains for a wide variety of household and personal care brands that did not rise high enough to break into the Top Ten, including Campbell’s (+215 places), Degree (+169), Crest (+223), and Bayer (+224) offline; and Dial (+214), Gerber (+217), Downey (+180), Bounty (+67), Glade (+110), and Charmin (+172) online.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has reshuffled consumer conversations, in line with changing lifestyles. In fifteen years of tracking, we’ve never seen so much change in such a short time,” Mr. Keller said.
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About Engagement Labs
Engagement Labs (TSXV: EL) is an industry-leading data and analytics firm that provides social intelligence for Fortune 500 brands and companies. The Company’s TotalSocial® platform focuses on the entire social ecosystem by combining powerful online (social media) and offline (word of mouth) data with predictive analytics. Engagement Labs has a proprietary ten-year database of unique brand, industry and competitive intelligence, matched with its cutting-edge predictive analytics that use machine learning and artificial intelligence to reveal the social metrics that increase marketing ROI and top line revenue for its diverse group of clients.
To learn more visit 
PlayStation launched ‘It’s Time to Play’ campaign in 2019 which led it to the top spot in the online ranking for two years in a row and coincides as the most popular video game console. On its heels are its competitors, Nintendo and Xbox in third place.
“PlayStation and the video game industry understand how passionate their fans and gamers can be. They incorporate incredible stories through their games and translates well into their advertising and marketing. Our ‘Online Brand Sharing’ metric is a test of the shareability of content online,” said Ed Keller, CEO of Engagement Labs. “Compelling and buzzworthy ads and marketing make a big difference and a much-needed competitive edge for brands in an increasingly tight market,” added Keller.
AARP jumped to the number one spot of the offline brand sharing this year with “Saving for Retirement” campaign with Ad Council, and various ad campaigns including the organization’s prescription drug related advocacy. Runner up for second place for offline brand sharing is AVON, the beauty brand and one of the world’s largest funders of causes that are critical to women’s rights. AVON with an army of more than 200,000 sales representatives in the US are also its brand ambassadors and marketers.
“Given the close relationship between consumer conversations and sales, brands that have a strong incentive to create “talkable” and “shareable” campaigns is important to make sure your passionate advocates are armed with the latest content to share with others,” notes Steven Brown, President of Engagement Labs. “AARP, AVON and GEICO are examples of brands that are extremely effective at generating conversations with their advertising, and this is a key factor in their success in the marketplace.”
To learn more about Engagement Labs and how to increase your brand’s word of mouth in real life and online, reach out at: 
The awards analyzed more than 600 U.S. consumer brands, Engagement Labs selected winners based on the extent to which this influential audience represented a large proportion of those people who talk about and recommend the brands offline and online.
“There are ‘everyday influencers,’ in people’s own social networks who get sought out for advice and recommendations,” said Ed Keller, CEO of Engagement Labs and author of the seminal book, The Influentials: One American in Ten Americans tells the Other 9 How to Vote, Where to Eat, and What to Buy. “It is important for brands to focus marketing on the “influencer next-door” who is often called upon to tell their close network about great products without being paid and maintain authenticity,” said Keller. “Marketers have a much more sustainable opportunity to engage everyday influencers whose value comes from personal relationships with their closest friends and families. They should not, however, be confused with paid influencers on places like Instagram and YouTube.”
Everyday influencers are the one in 10 consumers with large social networks who frequently make product and service recommendations – they are your neighbors who are first to try new electronics or beauty products, and eager to tell you what worked and what didn’t.
“This year’s most influential brands is a mix of sectors from retail, airlines, quick service restaurants and not surprisingly the beauty industry earned positive recommendations from consumers,” noted Keller. “We see dramatic leaps in ranking from Costco’s Kirkland brand from social media, and Subaru from offline face to face conversations.”
Data and extensive analytics undertaking reveal the impact of everyday influencers in driving business outcomes in 
“The eclectic mix of brands on our ‘most loved’ brands list show that brands in any category can earn positive recommendations from consumers,” said Engagement Labs CEO Ed Keller. “We also see the potential for brands to improve, dramatically, as Nintendo, Gain, and CoverGirl did last year.”
Many of the brands on both the online and offline lists are in the beauty category. Aveeno and Olay are among the most positively talked about brands offline, while 7 of the 10 top online brands are in the beauty category, including Avon, Mary Kay, and Garnier Fructis.
“The beauty category has worked hard to engage online influencers, and it shows in the positive discussions these brands receive,” said Keller. “It’s a lesson for other categories, as well, that they can benefit from proactive social media campaigns.”
Despite the general strength of beauty brands, several fell of the lists entirely. L’Oréal dropped off the “most loved” offline list, from number 8 in 2018 to 34 in 2019. In terms of positive online conversations, Estee Lauder fell from 8 to 46, and Neutrogena fell from 9 to 73.
To learn more about Engagement Labs and how to increase your brand’s consumer conversations in real life and online, reach out at: 
The December study stood out because it showed newly announced candidate Bloomberg at fourth place, ahead of Buttigieg who generally was ahead of Bloomberg in national polls at the time. Bloomberg’s polling has risen since pulling him even with Buttigieg in several recent polls.
“Bloomberg’s rise in the polls in January is consistent with what we’ve seen time and again—word of mouth predicts future preferences and behavior,” said Engagement Labs CEO Ed Keller.
Conversation Sentiment Favors Sanders, Buttigieg, Warren
The study also gauges sentiment, where the leaders are Sanders, Buttigieg, and Warren for whom more than 60% of their conversations are “mostly positive” according to the Democrats. Since December, conversations are less positive for Klobuchar (-7 points) and Gabbard (-14), while sentiment about Bloomberg has risen 8 points to 49% positive, the largest gain among any candidate.
African American Conversations Like Sanders, Dislike Buttigieg and Klobuchar
While Biden leads in the conversations of African Americans, his lead over Sanders is weaker than many observers might expect. Biden’s edge over Sanders in the frequency of conversations is just 31.7% to 29.0%, and Sanders has the most enthusiasm of any candidate, with 69% positive versus 58% for Biden.
Compared to all Democrats, Buttigieg’s rank in conversation frequency among African Americans drops from fifth to ninth, and his positive drops from second to ninth. Whereas Klobuchar’s sentiment ranks fifth among all Democrats, she is last among African Americans. Both Klobuchar’s and Buttigieg’s sentiment is 22 points lower among African Americans than among all Democrats.
Candidates who have more positive sentiment among African Americans than all Democrats include Yang who jumps from fourth to first, Biden who jumps from sixth to fourth, and Bloomberg who jumps from ninth to fifth.
“African Americans are a key voting constituency in Democratic politics and their conversations are extremely important to monitor,” said Engagement Labs’ Ed Keller. “Sanders makes a very strong showing, belying the conventional wisdom that this group – which will be front and center in South Carolina – is Biden’s fire wall.”
This Democratic Word-of-Mouth study was conducted via online interviews among 1,925 registered Democrats between January 8 and 9, 2020. Respondents reported on candidate conversations they participated in during the past seven days.
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