Which brands do Americans love enough to recommend? Here’s the top 10
Guinness is the most recommended brand in America, according to a new survey of more than 2,000 brands, with 91% of recent U.S. customers saying they would suggest the Irish beer to a friend or colleague.
Heineken came in second, with 90% of drinkers saying they’d recommend it, followed by Rihanna’s fashion brand Savage X Fenty, which also scored 90%.
Rounding out the top ten are CS:GO (90%), Durex (90%), Amstel (90%), St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (89%), Qatar Airways (89%), adidas (89%), and Black Rifle Coffee Company (89%).
The 2025 recommend rankings, compiled by consumer research firm YouGov, are based on customer surveys measuring how many people say they would recommend a brand they recently interacted with.
America’s eighth-most recommended brand, Qatar Airways, ranked first in YouGov’s global analysis, which averaged responses from more than one million customer interviews across 28 markets within its daily BrandIndex tracker.
To qualify for the global ranking, brands needed to be tracked in at least 10 of the 28 markets. Toyota follows Qatar Airways as the second most recommend brand in the global ranking, securing positive recommendations from 85% of customers around the world.
Three US-based brands made the global top 10 list:
- Levi’s, with 83% of global customers recommending (#3)
- Nike, with 82% of global customers recommending (#5)
- Neutrogena, with 81% of global customers recommending (#10)
Germany, meanwhile, is home to the highest number of most recommended brands, with adidas (#4), Mercedes-Benz (#7), BMW (#8), and trivago (#9) all based in Deutschland.
Who’s getting recommended more frequently than last year?
Jumping back to the United States analysis, X (formerly Twitter) has emerged as the brand with the most significant increase in positive recommendations since 2024. The social media platform saw a remarkable 14.1 percentage-point jump, rising from 39.4% to 53.5%. This increase reflects all site visitors and users, not just paid subscribers. This surge in recommendations follows recent controversies and changes under new ownership.
Behind X are pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline and financial services app Robinhood, both experiencing 10.8 percentage-point increases in positive recommendations.
The year-over-year data also reveals significant gains in customer recommendations for Chuck E. Cheese (+10.4) and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (+10.3).
Cars.com (+9.9), Taco Bueno (+9.3), Cigna (+8.8), Aquafina (+8.6), and CarGurus (+8.5) round out the top improvers list.
Who’s the most recommended in each industry?
Continuing the U.S. analysis of brand recommendations, interesting leaders emerge across various sectors.
In the automotive industry, Subaru leads with 88% of its U.S. customers saying they would be willing to recommend the brand. YouTube TV tops the Cable, Satellite & Streaming TV category with 74.8% of customers willing to recommend, while Icelandic Provisions stands out in the Food & Snacks sector with 85.1% customer recommendations.
In the competitive dining sector, ranging from fast food to sit-down restaurants, Cava has managed to secure a strong 85.5% recommendation rate from its American customer base.
These findings highlight the importance of brand loyalty and customer satisfaction across diverse industries. The high recommendation percentages suggest these brands have successfully cultivated strong relationships with their customers, likely through a combination of product quality, customer experience, and brand values alignment.
This story was produced by YouGov and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
