DIPMBQuality seal
Popular Brand 2026
You have been recognized!
Your brand has been awarded the “Popular Brand 2026” seal by the German Institute for Product and Market Assessment as part of a Germany-wide study. This award documents an above-average positive perception of your brand with regard to quality and customer focus.
Please note that you may only advertise with the certification once you have acquired the license rights to the award for 920.00 €. Contact us now, without obligation.
The “Popular Brand 2026” award makes visible a perception that shows itself in the public conversation around your brand. This is exactly where the function of the seal begins.
In markets with a large number of comparable offers, customers frequently fall back on signals that provide orientation. In such situations, external awards can help to make the public perception of a brand visible and to set an additional signal of trust.
The “Popular Brand 2026” seal indicates that your brand is mentioned in public with above-average frequency and predominantly positively. For consumers, this creates what is known as a social proof effect: when making decisions, people often take their cue from how others speak about a brand or which experiences are shared publicly.
Research in consumer studies shows that such social signals can influence the perception of brands — particularly in situations in which people lack their own experience or offers are difficult to compare.
Companies can use the seal to point to this study result and to make the public response around their brand visible, for example on the website, in presentations or in digital communication channels.
Award criteria
The award is based on a data-driven analysis of public brand perception in the digital space. The study took the following criteria into account in particular:
1. Tone of brand mentions
Analysis of whether brands are mentioned predominantly positively, neutrally or negatively on the internet and in social media.
2. Frequency of mentions
Recording of how often a brand is named in online discussions, reviews and posts.
3. Consistency of perception
Assessment of whether the perception of a brand is similar and stable across different platforms.
4. Thematic context of mentions
Analysis of the topics with which a brand is associated in the digital space, for example service, trust or user experience.
5. Public resonance
Assessment of the general presence and resonance of a brand in the digital space compared with other brands within a market.
The method
The “Popular Brand 2026” award is based on a data-driven analysis of public brand perception in digital communication spaces.
As part of the study, brand mentions from various publicly accessible online sources were collected and evaluated. The aim of the analysis was to obtain as comprehensive a picture as possible of how brands are discussed and perceived in the digital space.
The data was collected in the period from May 2025 to April 2026 and covered mentions from the following sources:
Social media
Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn and YouTube
Review platforms
Trustpilot, Google Reviews, Amazon reviews and Yelp
Blogs and forums
Online blogs, news portals and discussion forums in which consumers share their experiences and opinions
In total, more than 10 million data points were recorded and included in the analysis. Both direct brand mentions and comments, posts and hashtags relating to brands were taken into account.
Semantic analysis
The brand mentions collected were evaluated semantically using AI-supported methods. This involved not only a simple classification into positive, negative or neutral tone, but a differentiated analysis of the thematic contexts.
Among the thematic dimensions examined were:
- trust in the brand
- customer focus
- performance
- reliability
- general brand reputation
In addition to individual key terms, linguistic relationships and semantic fields were also taken into account. This made it possible to include thematically related terms, synonyms and different linguistic contexts in the assessment.
Sentiment and context analysis
As part of the analysis, a sentiment classification was also carried out. This assesses whether a brand mention is worded predominantly positively, neutrally or negatively.
In addition to individual terms, the linguistic context was also taken into account, since the meaning of a statement can depend heavily on the setting in which it appears.
Presence analysis
Alongside tone, the frequency of brand mentions was also examined. The analysis considers how often brands are discussed in the digital space and to what extent they form part of public conversation.
The combination of tone, thematic context and frequency of mention allows the brand perception to be classified within the scope of the study.
Result
On the basis of this multi-stage analysis, brands are identified that were mentioned in the digital space with above-average frequency and predominantly positively during the survey period.
Within the scope of the study, these brands can be awarded the “Popular Brand 2026” seal.
Contact
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