And the most patriotic brands are…

Brand Keys, a customer engagement and research consultancy, has identified the 25 brands consumers regard as the most patriotic.

Topping the list were Jeep, Hershey and Coca-Cola with Walmart the only retail brand to make the list at number 15.

“Lots of values drive brand engagement, of course, and the study looked at them all, but as marketers traditionally operate on the Independence Day theory that a patriotic, flag-waving call-to-emotion will motivate consumers to behave more positively toward their brands, we wanted to see which brands actually led when it came to that particular value,” said Robert Passikoff, founder and president, Brand Keys.

Accordingly, the company conductive a large-scale quantitative brand values survey that included 4,500 consumers from the nine U.S. Census Regions who were asked to evaluate 197 brands and 35 category-specific emotional engagement values. One of those values was patriotism as defined by the consumers who participated. The goal was to identify which brands are seen as most associated with the value of patriotism because those are the companies who are most likely to have patriotism-related marketing efforts be well received by consumers.

“I understand that the Fourth of July is a retail holiday, but some are going to see their efforts better received than others,” Passikoff said. The reason why is because, “saying it, being it and being it believably are three different things.”

In other words, whether patriotism can be credibly leveraged to the brand’s benefit is more a question of whether that value is seen as part of the brand’s equity, whether it’s truly acknowledged on a deeply emotional and engaging basis, according to Passikoff.

Listed below are the brands that resonated most strongly on the value of patriotism. Percentages indicate the degree to which the brand was seen to meet consumers’ emotional engagement expectations (benchmarked at 100%) regarding how much patriotism was credited to the brand:

1. Jeep (98%)

2. Hershey’s/Coca-Cola (97%)

3. Levi Strauss/Disney (95%)

4. Colgate (94%)

5. Zippo (93%)

6. Wrigley’s (92%)

7. Ralph Lauren (91%)

8. Kodak/Gillette (90%)

9. New Balance/Harley-Davidson (89%)

10. Budweiser/Marlboro (88%)

11. Ford (86%)

12. Louisville Slugger/Smith & Wesson (85%)

13. GE (84%)

14. John Deere/L.L. Bean (82%)

15. Walmart (81%)

16. Craftsman Tools/ Wilson Sporting Goods/Wrangler (80%)