• by Tanya Gazdik , June 30, 2014

With Independence Day around the corner, Jeep, Levi Strauss and Coca-Cola are the top three most patriotic brands in American, according to a Brand Keys survey.

Colgate and Disney round out the top five. Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, eBay, Walgreens and Sam Adams all move into the top 50.

Marketers like the July 4^th holiday because it gives them an opportunity to bring out the patriotic flag-waving and red-white-and-blue motifs, said Robert Passikoff, founder and president of Brand Keys, Inc., the New York-based brand loyalty and customer engagement research consultancy.

“Marketers cue the marching bands and majorettes, and look to leverage all the patriotic emotions that symbolize America,” Passikoff says.

To determine which brands actually led when it comes to patriotism, Brand Keys did a statistical “drill-down,” part of a larger brand values survey, to identify which of 225 brands were more associated with the value of “patriotism.”

The consultancy had 4,680 consumers ages 16 to 65 evaluate a collection of 35 values, including “patriotism.”

Brand engagement is more emotional than it is rational, Passikoff says.

“When it comes to engaging the consumer, waving an American flag and actually having an authentic foundation for being able to wave the flag are two entirely different things and the consumer knows it,” he says. “More importantly, believability is key to the engagement paradigm. The more engaged a consumer is with a particular emotional value and the associated brand, the more likely they’ll trust that emotion and act positively on that belief.”

It’s not surprising that many brands in the top 50 are American icons.

“This is not to say that other brands are not patriotic, or that they don’t possess any patriotic resonance,” he says.

Rational aspects like being an American company, or being “Made in the USA” or having nationally directed CSR activities and sponsorships all play a part in the make-up of any brand.

The company received comments last year about how some of the top 50 most patriotic brands didn’t belong there because they weren’t actually manufactured in the United States.

“That’s the rational side of decision-making,” he says “One thing marketers should have learned about brands over the past couple of decades is that those brands that can make an emotional connection with the consumer always have a strategic advantage over competitors when it come to the marketplace battle for the hearts, minds, and loyalty of consumers.