Think Brands Got Political in 2018? It's Only the Beginning, Says Analyst
*By Christian Smith*
While a growing number of companies incorporated politics into their brand voice in 2018, even more can be expected to take political stances moving into 2019, says Jeff Cartwright, vice president of content at Morning Consult, which published its list Tuesday of the most impactful brands in 2018.
"I think in 2018 we saw brands getting more political than ever before, and I think we're going to continue seeing that again," Cartwright said, using Nike's ad featuring Colin Kaepernick as an example of that growing political trend. "I think that's going to also play a big role in 2019 as early as the Super Bowl."
Morning Consult found that tech brands dominated the cultural conversation this year. Amazon ($AMZN) topped its list of brands most loved by consumers, and Netflix ($NFLX) was the brand that people were most likely to tell their friends about.
Millennials drove that love for tech, Cartwright noted. For example, 74 percent of adults overall said they would recommend Netflix to a friend, but that number was even higher for Millennials and Gen Xers (77 percent for both).
Direct-to-consumer company DoorDash won top spot for "Brand on the Rise," but it wasn't the only food delivery brand to make the cut.
"In addition to DoorDash, also on that list are companies like Uber Eats, we also have GrubHub on there, and \[food delivery apps are\] bursting onto the scene like never before," Cartwright said.
To create its list, Morning Consult pulled data from over 1.5 million survey interviews it conducted about more than 2,000 brands in 2018.
For full interview [cick here](https://cheddar.com/videos/the-brands-that-won-2018-according-to-morning-consult).
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