The Brand Visibility Report 2019

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Alongside coffee, the photogenic McFlurry is one of the top sweet treats. We also found people sharing unique regional McDonald’s desserts.

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.

Pepsi imagery is found in arenas and sports stadiums where the logo can be found prominently displayed on the walls.

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.

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.

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.

What do people do while sporting Chanel? Lazing around seems pretty common, with sitting and sleeping appearing in equal measure.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.