Companies and Brands

Digital Tech Firms Dominate 2016 Brand Loyalty Leaders

Paul Ausick

Published: October 19, 2016 11:20 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 2:11 am

Of the top 100 product categories and brands in a new ranking of customer loyalty leaders, more than a third (35) are involved in digital technology, social networking brands, or brands that facilitate digital tech or social networking. Of the top 20 firms in the ranking, only four are non–digital technology companies.

The ranking is based on a survey by brand consultancy Brand Keys of 72 product categories and 635 brands. The survey included nearly 43,000 consumers ages 18 to 65 who were interviewed by phone (75% of the total) or in-person (20%) and the remaining 5% who assessed brands online.

Brand Keys’ founder and president Robert Passikoff said:

Consumers haven’t entirely deserted traditional brands. The largest loyalty shifts this year have been in traditional areas like apparel, retail and athletic footwear, which for brands is both a gift and a curse.

The top 20 loyalty leaders and the associated categories are:

1. Google from Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL): search engines
2. Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN): online retail
3. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL): tablets
4. Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX): video streaming
5. Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB): social networking
6. Apple: smartphones
7. Amazon: tablets
8. YouTube from Alphabet: social networking
9. Amazon Prime Video: video streaming
10. What’s App from Facebook: instant messaging
11. iTunes from Apple: video streaming
12. PayPal Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL): online payments
13. Dunkin’ Donuts from Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc. (NASDAQ: DNKN): coffee
14. Samsung: smartphones
15. Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE): athletic footwear
16. Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F): automotive
17. Uber: rideshare
18. Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX): coffee
19. LinkedIn Corp. (NYSE: LNKD)
20. Zappos from Amazon: online retail

Brands that made the biggest moves up the rankings since last year include Starbucks (+22), Ralph Lauren (+19), Nike (+16), LG Electronics (+15), Domino’s Pizza (+15), HBO GO (+15) and Under Armour (+13).

Brands that made the biggest moves down in the rankings are Chipotle (-45), Estee Lauder (-34), eBay (-26), Clinique (-21) and Gap (-20).

Of the top 100 brands, nine are new to list this year: Airbnb, Line, theSkimm, Buzzfeed, Haagen Dazs, Jack Daniels, Burt’s Bees, Lowe’s and Vanguard.

Brands that fell from the top 100 include Ritz-Carlton, W Hotels, Hyatt, Hilton, Neutrogena, Revlon, Macy’s, FIFA and HTC smartphones.

The full list is available at the Brand Keys website.