Which Brands Generated the Most Buzz in 2017?

New York--YouGov has released its list of brands that generated the most positive buzz among consumers last year in the United States.  

The company’s 2017 Buzz Rankings position 1,600 brands according to “buzz score,” which is determined by asking consumers if they’ve heard anything about a specific brand in the last two weeks through advertising, news or word of mouth, and, if so, was it positive or negative?  

Scores are calculated by subtracting the percentage of negative responses from the percentage of positive responses for each brand.

Generating the most positive buzz among Americans and earning the top spot for the fifth consecutive year is, perhaps unsurprisingly, Amazon.

Last year was a big one for the e-commerce giant. In June, it acquired high-end grocer Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, giving it a physical presence in many markets.

A few months after that, Amazon announced plans to open a second headquarters, inviting cities and regions to place bids to be the host of the $5 billion investment. They have now narrowed the list down to 20 possibilities.

And on top of everything else, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos also became the richest person in the world in 2017, ending the year with a total worth of about $100 billion.

CNBC reported last spring that some analysts believe the company could account for half of all e-commerce sales by 2021.

Following Amazon at No. 2 on YouGov’s Buzz Rankings is Netflix, which continues to pick up buzz as it generates more of its own content. In fact, Netflix earned a total of 91 Emmy nominations in 2017.

Amazon continued its dominance by also earning the No. 3 spot with Amazon Prime, its paid subscription service that gives users access to free two-day delivery, streaming video/music and other benefits.

It’s estimated that half of all households now have a subscription to Prime, not to mention that Amazon said its 2017 Prime Day, a one-day only sales event just for subscribers, was its biggest sales day yet and pulled in more new members than ever before.

At No. 4 is YouTube, which claims through its own statistics that nearly one-third of all people on the internet use the video sharing site to watch a billion hours of video every day.

At No. 5 is Google, followed by Nike at No. 6, dish soap Dawn at No. 7--boosted