THE MOST VISIBLE BRANDS
The Brand Visibility Report 2019
We analyzed 50 million images on Twitter to find the most photographed brands
8 Minute Read
FIND OUT HOW VISIBLE YOUR BRAND ISWe searched through 50 million images online to find the top brand logos featured in them most.
Whether it’s with our use of emoji or our obsession with Instagram Stories, we’re all getting used to communicating in a world where language is increasingly visual.
Brand managers shouldn’t ignore this – especially when a large portion of a brand’s online presence comes from images with no text mention of the brand itself.
In the spirit of celebrating brands who’re smashing it in getting their logo seen online, we decided to list the top 50 we found within 50 million tweeted images. We’ll also cover:
- The context of the photos logos appear in
- The brand shared most by men and women
- The impact of influencers on brand visibility
- The most popular logos by location, across the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific
- A breakdown of the most visual industries and the most shared logos within them
For more on the methodology click here.
The most visual brands
The world contains brands of all sizes. They can be measured by market cap, by revenue, by number of employees, or by awareness. Here, we ranked brands by the number of times their logo appears to assess their visual power.
In the top 50, there are some of the usual suspects like Amazon and Adidas, but also some more surprising ones like Kia and Gatorade. But all of the brands making the list are at the top of their game in creating visual identities that become part of consumers’ lives.
The top 50 most photographed brands on Twitter
Ranking | Brand name | Number of logo mentions on Twitter |
---|---|---|
1 | Amazon | 7,431,193 |
2 | McDonald's | 4,952,473 |
3 | Chanel | 3,783,851 |
4 | Adidas | 3,088,607 |
5 | EA Sports | 2,019,969 |
6 | Nike | 1,706,864 |
7 | Apple | 1,683,476 |
8 | Pepsi | 1,271,466 |
9 | Chevrolet | 1,215,015 |
10 | Emirates | 1,111,787 |
11 | Coca-Cola | 1,096,531 |
12 | Kia Motors | 1,062,895 |
13 | Puma | 827,139 |
14 | Chick-fil-a | 822,972 |
15 | Oreo | 658,819 |
16 | Olympics | 618,120 |
17 | Samsung | 525,560 |
18 | BMW | 504,617 |
19 | Under Armour | 471,332 |
20 | Nikon | 452,035 |
21 | 440,386 | |
22 | Barclays | 411,410 |
23 | KFC | 410,171 |
24 | AT&T | 394,005 |
25 | Boston Red Sox | 375,588 |
26 | Corona Extra | 374,790 |
27 | Hyundai | 351,039 |
28 | Toyota | 345,887 |
29 | Huawei | 298,011 |
30 | United Airlines | 269,137 |
31 | Goodyear | 261,516 |
32 | Louis Vuitton | 259,046 |
33 | Reebok | 249,522 |
34 | Pantene | 249,439 |
35 | ANA | 245,960 |
36 | Hersey's | 241,424 |
37 | Ikea | 240,854 |
38 | Budweiser | 238,567 |
39 | Microsoft | 228,792 |
40 | Sky | 224,578 |
41 | Kia | 206,424 |
42 | T-Mobile | 201,212 |
43 | Mercedes Bez | 181,271 |
44 | Southwest Airlines | 174,663 |
45 | Vodafone | 161,211 |
46 | Heineken | 160,324 |
47 | Coach | 157,507 |
48 | Gatorade | 153,516 |
49 | BBVA | 139,442 |
50 | Honda | 124,396 |
In the next section, we explore the different contexts some of the top performing brand logos commonly appear in.
Most common objects, scenes, and actions associated with top brands
Images often contain many components. Some are chaotic, containing many people doing different things. Others are more straightforward, with plain backgrounds and few actions.
But even the simplest picture can tell a meaningful story, thanks to the objects, scenes, and actions within it and the context behind it.
When our eyes look at a picture, we see a snapshot in time: not just the subjects of the picture, but what they were doing, where they were, and what objects were around them when the picture was taken.
For brands, this context around how their products appear in real life is invaluable. In this section, we used our image analysis technology to imitate the way the human eye processes photos, detecting the objects, scenes and actions present alongside the following popular brand logos.
Amazon
Amazon is a prominent global e-commerce brand, and its logo is pretty much omnipresent.
So where will you most likely encounter an Amazon logo?
In traffic is one of the most common places. With Amazon ads displayed prominently on storefronts, billboards, and trucks, it is hard to bypass while traversing on the road.
What actions are associated with Amazon? Handwriting is a popular one, particularly with packages. Another common action is first person games, meaning photos containing video games, consoles, and other accessories associated with gaming.
For objects, mobile phones are among the most popular. E-commerce is going mobile and Amazon is at the forefront of mobile shopping.
4 lessons learned from 200,000 Amazon beauty, personal care product pages https://t.co/4TpQYt2bXg pic.twitter.com/7a14QC9frT
— Swetha Neelgundh (@swethaneelgundh) September 13, 2018
It’s a good sign if consumers are sharing screenshots of product listings on Amazon – clearly their e-commerce platform is displaying them well.
McDonald’s
The golden arches are internationally recognized and the company behind them is all over social media.
Looking at the top scenes associated with the McDonald’s logo, lunch is popular – beating out breakfast, brunch, and dinner. Meanwhile, birthdays are oftentimes celebrated at McDonald’s and the resulting photographs are shared online. With celebratory birthday hats and a brightly lit interior, a McDonald’s birthday party is of course popular with kids.
— BEBÊS 👶 (@Ilovebebes_) September 24, 2018
What actions are commonly associated with McDonald’s or its logo? Cheering is one. If McDonald’s puts you in a celebratory mood, you’re not alone. A good number of cheering photos comes from McDonald’s sponsoring sports events and players celebrating after a win.
🤷🏾♂️ pic.twitter.com/BVSagoO2lI
— Russell Westbrook (@russwest44) October 31, 2018
As for objects, french fries are McDonald’s golden child, with many loyal fans. Naturally, junk food is also another popular object. Perhaps less expected are coffee and dessert.
McDonald’s has been amping up its coffee game and it’s showing – more and more people are going to McDonald’s for inexpensive coffee. Coffee drinks both hot and iced are being photographed by fans.
レッスンDAY🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️
— 安納なお | NAO ANNO (@naovoice) November 21, 2018
高音が気持ち良く出た♡楽!!
身体に落とし込む、ぞ!
学んだら学んだことだけでなく自分ならどうするか、踏まえて自分を出すにはというところまで。ただ今修行中。早くパワーアップあんのーをお届けしたいわ\\\٩(๑`^´๑)۶////
今日はマックカフェ。
カフェラテを求める季節。 pic.twitter.com/xUa0CRuDqd
こんなの出てたんだな(°▽°) pic.twitter.com/9i8K3XgYSo
— [email protected] (@wbarow) September 9, 2018
Alongside coffee, the photogenic McFlurry is one of the top sweet treats. We also found people sharing unique regional McDonald’s desserts.
作業一区切り着いたのでカロリーしか取れないメニューで昼飯ですわ✧*。
— PUIPUI🐹ダイナマイト西岡ー (@dynamite1105) September 1, 2018
※ この後BX行きます pic.twitter.com/kmUEK24teX
꽤 마싯네 pic.twitter.com/QHHNJt4brP
— 🎗💚커뮤러닝.야근💚🍠canna/고구마🍠 (@thfk0717) November 21, 2018
Pepsi
Pepsi and sports go hand-in-hand. Well, maybe not drinking Pepsi while participating in sports, but in the world of sponsorships for sports teams and events, Pepsi is king.
The brand is particularly popular in the world of soccer.
Mañana temprano exámenes a Roberto Ovelar y Matías de los Santos para determinar si les alcanza para el partido vs Once Caldas. Tiene más chances el paraguayo. pic.twitter.com/FXKMR78p5C
— Julián Capera (@JulianCaperaB) September 21, 2018
Pepsi imagery is found in arenas and sports stadiums where the logo can be found prominently displayed on the walls.
علي مسؤلية المختلط | مؤمن زكريا مضي للزمالك مقابل مليون دولار استلمهم كاش . pic.twitter.com/6WfdK5nXVH
— المختلط 1911 (@Mokhtalat1911) September 21, 2018
For actions, ‘tackle’ tops the list. Continuing on the theme of sports, as players tackle each other during the game, the Pepsi logo is often displayed just out of focus in the background.
Cheering also happens, as players and crowds celebrate wins in sporting jerseys with the Pepsi logo. But cheering is not just about sports – when celebrities get on stage and perform, they also make celebratory gestures.
hi this tweet is a petition to @Camila_Cabello follow me! I love her so much, she’s so amazing & would be wonderful if she sees this and realize my dream 💜 pic.twitter.com/wFDeb2g8KT
— manu is studying (@hurtslikeme) December 15, 2018
Lastly, the most common object associated with the Pepsi logo are drinks. Since this is what people tend to do with Pepsi products, it’s interesting this falls behind imagery relating to sponsorships.
Miren que chulada.
— SomosChapines (@SomosChapines) September 21, 2018
Estoy seguro tener guardada una pero saber donde 😭 pic.twitter.com/SZLn7SXmuO
Chanel
Luxury brand Chanel has succeeded in evoking romance.
The clothes are not the only things that are dreamy about Chanel – the brand is often photographed in moments of love or intimacy between two or more people.
A popular scene for Chanel is fashion shows. A staple at Fashion Week, people share photos of the designer brand’s runway or street style looks on Twitter.
@CHANEL Hamburg Street Style 2017/18. pic.twitter.com/jdY8FwbjCO
— Koninklijk (@H_A_N_A_M_I) June 13, 2018
What do people do while sporting Chanel? Lazing around seems pretty common, with sitting and sleeping appearing in equal measure.
Nadine Lustre’s really out there being the love of my life. pic.twitter.com/wqwV8jFCoF
— (●´ω`●) (@dprkive) October 27, 2018
Outerwear is popular, as the brand produces plenty of fashionable coats, jackets, and blazers.
EA Sports
EA Sports images are exactly as you’d expect them to be. Photos containing the sport game developer’s logo are often in the context of sports scenes and arenas –no duh!
Naturally, players are featured prominently in photos containing the EA Sports logo. Meanwhile, their winter sports get plenty of attention.
Breaking the brands down by gender
One way to break down our logo queries is to look at those that are shared most prominently by men or by women.
When we looked for the brands that had the highest percentage of female-categorized posters, we found they were pretty different to those shared by men. The results, while stereotypical, reveal the dominant audiences for the brands making the top five in each category.
For example, brands associated with fashion, health, and beauty are in the top spots on the female list, while beer, sports and power equipment brands have the highest percentage of males sharing their logos.
Breaking data like this out by demographics allows brands to get a better idea of their advocates online – to understand their audience better, and to find pockets of their audience that they hadn’t previously known about.
Influencers and brand logos
Influencer marketing is an industry in its own right these days, but not everyone sharing a logo image is being paid by the brand.
By looking at logo shares from high profile accounts, brands are able to find the people promoting their logo to the largest audiences.
Brands being mentioned most by popular Twitter accounts
Brand | Number of influential accounts sharing logo |
---|---|
Adidas | 4,625 |
Nike | 3,488 |
Coca-Cola | 2009 |
Emirates | 1,844 |
Under Armour | 1,659 |
Tracking influencer shares is a great way to track sponsorships and unexpected high profile advocates. Here are some examples for Nike to illustrate a mix of predictable and potentially unpredictable images shared by influencers that include their logo.
Sponsorship tracking

Influential podcasters

New music video

This kind of tracking allows brands to measure the impact of current influencer relationships as well as spot opportunities for future partnerships with advocates they may not currently have a formal relationship with.
Top logos by location
Looking at the top logos by location, clear patterns emerge.
We looked at the top logo in states in the United States, countries in Europe, and countries in Asia-Pacific.
US
The United States is Nike nation. Nike is popular in the South, Midwest, and California. There are also some very state-specific preferences like Massachusetts’ affinity for the Boston Red Sox.
Europe
Europe, meanwhile, is Adidas land. The sports brand is popular in soccer – a favorite sport in countries like Germany and Spain.
Asia-Pacific
APAC, like Europe, is also very much into Adidas. Some U.S. sports teams like the New York Yankees show up as the top logo because of the logo’s prominence in fast fashion.
Industry analysis
The most photographed industries
Our database of logo queries spans a wide range of brands and industries, and by looking at the top performing logos we’re also able to find out which industries are behind the most visual content.
This isn’t just owned content from a brand, but also the many images uploaded by consumers that include a logo somewhere within the picture.
While fashion or beauty might be obvious choices as the most visual industries on social, it’s actually consumer tech and auto brands that are seeing their logos shared the most.
Here’s the industry breakdown of the top 50 most shared logos in our records.
The top logos by industry
There are dominant brands in every industry.
In this section, we looked at the brands that were most visually dominant in the fashion, automotive, and financial services industries.
Fashion industry: Top logos
Logo | % of industry conversation containing this logo |
---|---|
Adidas | 0.22% |
Chanel | 0.10% |
Nike | 0.10% |
New Balance | 0.01% |
Asics | 0.01% |
In the world of fashion, what brand of clothes, shoes, and accessories are people photographing and sharing images of?
Adidas is number one, worn by professional athletes and non-professional athletes alike. From tracksuits to shoes, Adidas is everywhere. Chanel is a timeless high-end staple. With inspiring and inclusive ad campaigns featuring Colin Kaepernick and a sports hijab, Nike is among the most visible brands. New Balance and Asics round out the top five.
Automotive industry: Top logos
Logo | % of industry conversation containing this logo |
---|---|
Toyota | 0.27% |
Volkswagen | 0.18% |
Kia | 0.18% |
Mercedes | 0.16% |
Audi | 0.01% |
The transportation landscape is changing, and cars are a big part of driving that change. From connected cars to smart cars to eco-friendly cars to self-driving cars, innovation in the automotive industry is ramping up. Which brands are the most visible? Toyota takes the top spot. A relatively affordable and reliable brand, Toyota is beloved by consumers. Meanwhile, Volkswagen, Kia, Mercedes and Audi crack the top five.
Fin serv industry: Top logos
Logo | % of industry conversation containing this logo |
---|---|
Apple | 0.28% |
Capital One | 0.24% |
IBM | 0.14% |
Visa | 0.14% |
Amazon | 0.01% |
Move over, traditional banks. In the financial services world, technology companies like Apple have offered payment options that are resonating with consumers.
Apple Pay adoption seems to be on the up, while Capital One and Visa, perhaps more established brands in the sector, come in second and fourth place, respectively. IBM comes in third because it’s helping usher artificial intelligence into banking. Lastly, Amazon has gotten into financial services with Amazon Pay.
Summary
Some say that a picture is worth a thousand words. By conducting brand-based image analysis, we’ve unlocked valuable insights about the most visible brands, the most photographed industries, and the contexts the logos are photographed in, as well as demographics, top influencers and location-related data nuggets.
As social media becomes more visual, it becomes increasingly important to see how people communicate and connect through pictures, and the role brands play in them.
Methodology
Ranking:
We used Brandwatch and Crimson Hexagon’s combined database of logos from some of the most successful brands in the world to find instances of those logos being shared on Twitter. The logos here are ranked according to the number of visual mentions we found of them between September 2019 and February 2018. Accompanying text was not taken into account.
Image analysis:
Our technology imitates the way the human eye processes visual content using neural networks to detect the logos, objects, scenes and action in image-based posts.
Gender analysis:
We used Brandwatch’s selection of logo queries to find the most shared logos broken down by the gender of an author.
Brandwatch uses a vast database of names to understand the gender of the person behind an account. Where the algorithm isn’t sure, it doesn’t add categorize an account as belonging to someone of a particular gender.
Influencer analysis:
We used Brandwatch’s selection of logo queries to find the most shared logos by Twitter accounts that had more than 10k followers.
Of course, there are many different definitions of what an influencer is, and the metric we used here is just one way to look at an account.
Scope
We looked at tweets from September 1, 2018 to February 28, 2019. The posts are global and not filtered by language or location.
Brand Selection
The Brand Visibility Report analyzed 203 of the biggest brands, using our combined database. We ranked the top 50 based on the number of times the logos appear, then conducted additional analyses.
Comparison to 2018
The 2018 Brand Visibility Report used Brandwatch’s database. This report used the combined database and the combined functionality from both legacy Brandwatch and legacy Crimson Hexagon to determine the top 50 logos. Leveraging the strength of our platforms, we added new sections like identifying and explaining most common objects, scenes, and actions, and top brands by industry.