Brand Intimacy 

New brands emerge daily, platforms multiply by the minute, and consumers have become brand critics, curators, and co-creators. Brand Intimacy is the emotional science behind the bonds we form with the brands we use and love. It uncovers the best way for brands to outperform: powerful emotional relationships. Quantitative research guides our model, which identifies the components of intimate brand relationships and enables us to calculate a quotient score indicating performance for any brand.

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Emotion drives decisions

Built on neuroscience and behavioral paradigms established by Nobel-winning scientists, revealing that emotion is at the core of decisions

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Intimacy outperforms

Top-performing emotional brands outperform major indices and have customers who are more loyal and willing to pay a premium

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Relationships are measurable

We can quantify the strength and character of the emotional levers that help intimate brands create stronger bonds with consumers

The 2026 Brand Intimacy Study

In its 11th year, our largest study of brands becomes continuous and longitudinal. By continuously ingesting and analyzing a direct feed of social conversational data across the digital consciousness, we’re creating ongoing tracking of brand performance metrics by emotion. The study decodes how emotional connections are made in an algorithm-driven world by quantifying performance for 425 brands across 23 industries. Identify fast risers and how they create emotional bonds. Compare performance across brands and industries with head-to-heads. Discover how the sociopolitical climate and AI landscape have affected brand relationships.

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Decode social brand consensus

Captures how consumer relationships are influenced by the socially co-created brand consensus that happens on today’s online platforms

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Compare performance metrics

Tracks emotional traits behind consumer-brand relationships, with holistic measures that enable direct comparisons between brands and their families, industries, and historic data

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Discover brand insights

Identify which brands are succeeding, how they do it, and who’s falling behind as brands become emotionally-charged artifacts built on cultural consensus

The pulse of how people really feel about brands

Explore the Study

Highlights from 10 years of unpacking emotional brand relationships

Text reads: “95% of decisions are emotional. The Brand Intimacy Study builds on research about emotion in psychology, neuroscience, and consumer behavior.”.
Text stating “95% of decisions are emotional” with a note about the Brand Intimacy Study and references to experts in psychology and neuroscience.
Text reads: “Multicountry research. Our 2012 cocreation qualitative study uncovered and identified how consumers talk about intimacy through a multicountry research panel.”.
Text reads: “6,000 consumer voices. In 2014, we released our first study. A year later, a quantitative study of 6,000 consumers validated our model and uncovered new insights.”.
Infographic showing “15 large-scale quantitative studies” published since 2015 on intimate brands and emotional connection impacting ROI.
Text describing 15 large-scale quantitative studies analyzing top intimate brands and emotional impact on ROI since 2015; black icon at top right.
Image displaying text: “#1 Amazon bestseller. Our book Brand Intimacy: A New Marketing Paradigm is an award-winning Amazon bestseller setting the standard for brand understanding in marketing.”.
Graphic displaying “600+ media features” with text explaining Brand Intimacy’s frequent media citations and impact on global brand performance and emotional connection.
Text reads: “Machine-learning powered. Our latest study taps into billions of social conversations filtered through AI and ML analysis to uncover the emotions behind collective brand consciousness.”.
Text graphic stating “#1 Amazon bestseller” and describing “Brand Intimacy” as an award-winning book about brands in modern marketing. An eye icon appears in the top right corner.
Graphic displays “600+ media features” with text explaining Brand Intimacy’s frequent citation in major media for its insights on brand performance and emotional impact. Target icon is shown on the right.
Text reads: “Machine-learning powered. Our latest study taps into billions of social conversations filtered through AI and ML analysis to uncover emotions behind collective brand consciousness.”.

Brand Intimacy is fundamental to how we create success for our clients

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