Our Methodology

When Lippincott launched the Go-to Brands framework in 2019, the foundational dataset was based on a survey of more than 30,000 consumers’ personal perspectives spanning 500 brands across the world. Since then we’ve fielded annual survey refreshes and analyzed the data through our proprietary global brand diagnostic tool,  Brand Aperture®, to assess notable shifts in consumer sentiment. The longitudinal data provides marketing leaders with a rapid evaluation of their brand’s performance relative to competitors, and—more importantly—tangible and directive implications for their brand strategies. 

Go-to Brands are ones that create meaning in customers’ lives by creating connection and enabling progress. Connection is how strongly customers love a brand, and progress means that the brand helps them do something they couldn’t do before. While companies have long understood the value of being “customer-centric,” today's customers are looking for a more personal connection with brands that champion their worldview and values. Equally important is a brand's ability to enable progress for customers, whether by solving a larger societal problem or making a smaller quest in daily life easier.

Connection without progress risks disruption, and progress without connection risks defection. Combining both is what sets Go-to Brands apart, in business resilience and in revenue growth. In fact, Go-to Brands grow 2-5x faster on average than their peers in good times, and see greater resilience during bad.

• Comfort Brands win users' hearts with strong connection but aren't seen as boundary pushers and enabling progress—they're at risk of being disrupted.
• Enabling Brands are valued for what they do and the progress they enable, but not loved for how they do it. Many are celebrated innovators, but without winning users' hearts, they risk losing loyalty.
• Transactional Brands have low scores on both dimensions of connection and progress. They have room to grow across the board and risk becoming commodity brands.
• Go-to Brands are the bar setters, where other brands should aspire to be. Many earn permission to play across traditional category boundaries.

In 2025, we surveyed 40,000+ customers (across five countries) about 500+ brands in 18 industries. The brands celebrated in each region are determined by consumer responses to a series of questions related to our Go-to Brands diagnostic dimensions of connection and progress, with the addition of a new dimension this year: momentum. This tells us not just that a brand is meaningful now, but that people are excited by what’s to come. If Go-to Brands are the ones who’ve successfully won customers’ business to date, Momentum brands are the ones to watch in the future.

By combining connection, progress, and momentum, our 2025 list offers a fresh, forward-looking view of the marketplace—highlighting brands that are rising, resonating, and ready to lead on the attributes their customers care about most.

Geographic Breakdown

• United States: 15,061 customers across 202 brands
• United Kingdom: 12,808 customers across 159 brands
• Australia: 4,415 customers across 55 brands
• Singapore: 3,915 customers across 52 brands
• South Korea: 4,725 customers across 57 brands

This year’s respondents answered at least 38 questions about brands they interact with every day, which we used to determine which brands rose to the top. To calculate scores across Connection, Progress, and Momentum, respondents answered specific questions around how a brand connects to them and helps them make progress in their daily lives, including:

• Do I love this brand?
• Does this brand help me do things I couldn’t do before?
• Are this brand’s best days ahead or behind?

Every brand featured on our list is a Go-to Brand that excels across the connection, progress, and momentum dimensions; this year we’re introducing a superlative system to spotlight brands based on qualitative customer feedback for rankings against individual brand attributes. Customers answered deeper questions about each brand, such as:

• Does this brand share my values?
• Does this brand help me feel a part of something bigger than myself?
• Is this brand easier to use than similar brands?
• Does this brand make me meaningfully happier?
• …and more

Five brands were shortlisted as superlative nominees for the corresponding attribute, and winners were selected by Lippincott’s Senior Partner experts, who draw not only from their multiple decades of building winning brands but also on insight from Lippincott's rich 80+ year history of creating some of the most iconic corporate identities that stand the test of time and continue to grow year over year.