DoorDash Tops List of the 20 Fastest-Growing US Brands

Every new company aspires to become the next Apple, with loyal (some might say fanatical) customers willing to pay a premium price for anything stamped with the company’s brand. If it were easy, there would be a lot more Apples in the world.

There are any number of strategies and tactics to building a successful brand, and one of the intermediate stages of brand development is getting people to add a brand to their consideration set when purchasing a product or service.

Research firm Morning Consult’s Brand Intelligence group tracks consumers’ perceptions of brands by conducting thousands of online surveys every day. Among the data points the company collects based on these surveys is whether a consumer would consider purchasing a brand’s product or service over the course of the next year.

Between October 15 and November 15, the company surveyed an average of nearly 12,000 consumers per brand and compared the results to a similar survey conducted this past January. The difference represents the brands that grew fastest (or slowest) in 2019.

The brand demonstrating the fastest growth during 2019 is DoorDash, with a 14.3% increase between the survey dates in the number of consumers who would consider using the service. DoorDash offers restaurant food delivery services for local businesses throughout the United States and Canada.

White Claw Hard Seltzer posted a gain of 9.4% to rank second in brand growth, and DoorDash competitor Postmates finished third with an increase of 9.3%. Impossible Foods added 7.9% to its brand consideration score, and digital wallet company Venmo finished fifth with a score increase of 6.7%.

Rounding out the top 10 were Kind Snacks (up 6.5%), Ring and Cash App (up 5.7% each), and Purple Mattresses and Amazon Prime (up 5.3% each).

Among the top 20 brands, four are delivery companies: DoorDash, Postmates, UberEats and Grubhub. Gillette (#15, up 4.4%) and Harry’s Shave Club (#20, up 4.1%) are in the same business, with the former nearing its 120th birthday.

Morning Consult also broke down the survey results by demographics. DoorDash finished at the top of each, with a 21.7% increase in consideration among Gen Z, 21.2% among millennials, 11.7% among Gen X and 9.1% among boomers. After that, tastes shift.

Postmates finished second among Gen Z, third among millennials, second among Gen X and eighth among boomers. White Claw finished second among millennials, fifth among Gen Z, third among Gen X and seventh among boomers. Impossible Foods, which finished second among boomers and fifth among Gen X, did not make the top 10 among Gen Z and ranked seventh among millennials.

The survey also reported a list of the 2019 brands that gained the most awareness, a necessary precursor to putting a brand into a consumer’s consideration set. DoorDash finished second with an awareness increase of 23.5%. The brand scoring highest was e-cigarette maker Juul, with awareness growth of 29%.

Juul’s ranking demonstrates how quickly public opinion can turn on a company that is the subject of an almost unending stream of negative media coverage. Juul, like Purdue Pharma and WeWork before it, generated a big increase in awareness, but that is not going to translate into consumer purchase consideration or, ultimately, more sales.

Just how much is a brand worth? Apple’s brand value is nearly $215 billion, about a fifth of its market cap. Here are the 100 most valuable brands in the world.