Here’s some good news for Netflix to kick off 2020.
The global streaming service, Netflix, has topped YouGov’s annual US Buzz Rankings for the second consecutive year with a score of 29.2.
It’s the latest in a recent string of accolades for the streaming company that includes two Best Picture nominations, for The Irishman and Marriage Story, and a strong showing against its international subscriber-growth target, according to its fourth quarter earnings report Tuesday.
Since 2011, YouGov’s annual Buzz Ranking has been highlighting the companies that generated the most positive conversation over the past 12 months. Our Buzz scores are calculated by asking Americans every day if they’ve heard anything positive or negative about a brand in the past two weeks—subtracting the percentage of negative responses from the percentage of positive responses. YouGov’s BrandIndex Buzz Rankings are the average of these scores between January 1st, 2019 and December 31st, 2019.
Netflix isn’t the only powerhouse that’s generating positive conversations.
Amazon, another household name in the US, earns two spots on the 2019 US Buzz Rankings list. The data indicates that people have positive things to say about the brand, whose unique market positioning as both a service (Amazon Prime) and a parent company (Amazon.com) in this case means twice the glory.
Other notable names returning to the list in 2019 are M&M’s, Samsung, Dawn, Toyota, and Home Depot. The conversation around brands in 2019 also saw two newcomers rise to the Top Buzz Rankings list: Dove and Aldi.
The National Football League (NFL) is 2019’s Top Improver
In terms of the brands that received the biggest gains in Buzz from 2018 to 2019, none saw a greater change in score than the NFL, which improved by 7.1 percentage points. Its achievement as the biggest improver from 2018 should be welcome news just less than two weeks from Super Bowl LIV, which will host the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs in Miami on February 2nd..jpg)
The NFL isn’t the only sports-related brand to gain recognition for its gains throughout 2019. The FIFA Women’s World Cup also saw a notable uptick in Buzz, from 2.6 to 5.6, likely from the championship event in July 2019 and the dominance shown by the US women’s soccer team. ESPN, the major sports broadcasting network, also makes the list this year with an improvement of 2.7 percentage points.
United Airlines is 2019’s next Top Buzz Improver and appears to have built upon the gains it saw as 2018’s Top Buzz Improver. One of America’s major airlines, United also reported stronger profits in its latest earnings report alongside clawing its way out of negative Buzz territory. Papa John’s and Xfinity shared a similar fight throughout 2019: the two brands rebounded from their negative Buzz scores in 2018 and are now sitting with positive scores to round out 2019.
See the Top Buzz and Top Buzz Improvers Rankings from 2019 and 2018 here
Methodology: The 1,750 brands in YouGov BrandIndex were ranked using the Buzz score which asks respondents, “If you've heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?” Scores are net scores, calculated by subtracting the percentage of negative responses from the percentage of positive responses for each brand.
The Buzz Rankings chart shows the brands with the highest average Buzz scores between January 1st and December 31st, 2019. The Buzz Improvers chart ranks the brands with the highest increase in Buzz comparing scores in years 2018 and 2019, to be included in the Buzz Improvers list, the variance must be positive. Scores are representative of the general population.
All Buzz scores listed have been rounded to a single decimal place; however, we have used additional precision to assign ranks.
All brands must be tracked for at least 6 months to be included in the rankings, and must have been tracked for at least 6 months in the prior year’s period (as well as being currently tracked) to appear in the movers table.
Image: Getty
Note: An earlier version of this story included incorrect data and has since been updated.
