*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).
Europeans upset with Elon Musk still aren’t buying his electric cars, adding to a long losing streak for his company.
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
Ford is recalling more than 355,000 of its pickup trucks across the U.S. because of an instrument panel display failure that’s resulted in critical information, like warning lights and vehicle speed, not showing up on the dashboard.
Nvidia reported a 56% increase in second-quarter revenue and a 59% rise in net income compared to a year ago.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos claims audiences don't want to watch Netflix movies in theaters, but that seems not to be the case recently.
Chipmaker Nvidia is poised to release a quarterly report that could provide a better sense of whether the stock market has been riding an overhyped artificial intelligence bubble or is being propelled by a technological boom that’s still gathering momentum.
Cracker Barrel said late Tuesday it’s returning to its old logo after critics — including President Donald Trump — protested the company’s plan to modernize.
Low-value imports are losing their duty-free status in the U.S. this week as part of President Donald Trump's agenda for making the nation less dependent on foreign goods. A widely used customs exemption for international shipments worth $800 or less is set to end starting on Friday. Trump already ended the “de minimis” rule for inexpensive items sent from China and Hong Kong, but having to pay import taxes on small parcels from everywhere else likely will be a big change for some small businesses and online shoppers. Purchases that previously entered the U.S. without needing to clear customs will be subject to the origin country’s tariff rate, which can range from 10% to 50%.
