May 12th, 2023, Clifton Mark
The US Advertisers of the Month for April are Bud Light, Ace Hardware and Colgate, meaning that they showed the largest increase in Ad Awareness for the month of all the brands we track. Ad Awareness, tracked by YouGov BrandIndex, is a measure of the proportion of consumers that have seen an advertisement for a given brand in the past two weeks
Bud Light is our advertiser of the month for April, moving from 16.2% to 25.1% for a gain of 8.9 percentage points. This came in a consistent rise in Awareness over the course of the month with 50% more Americans reporting seeing an Ad for Bud Light at the end of April than at the end of March.
Much of this gain is likely due to the controversy over Bud Light’s partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney which has kept the beer brand in the news since the beginning of April. While the sponsorship led to some positive feelings among younger drinkers, it’s unclear whether that will outweigh the outrage expressed by American conservatives. According to data from BrandIndex, sentiment about Bud Light among registered Republicans has deteriorated severely. This is a case where Ad Awareness may not be a good thing. Mulvaney’s short video of herself holding a personalized Bud Light can has been seen by many but often only to stoke resentment.
Our second advertiser of the month is the toothpaste brand Colgate which rose from 15.1% to 20.1% Ad Awareness, for a gain of five points. This uplift may be related to Colgate’s new “Live Life to the Brightest” campaign. Three videos, directed by Ace Norton of JOJX, show people enjoying tooth-staining foods accompanied by the slogan “Teeth were made to indulge.” These are matched with shots of Colgate Optic White products and brilliant smiles.
Ace Hardware is April’s third Advertiser of the Month, with a gain of 4.8 points, moving from 23.4% Ad Awareness to 28.2%. The retailer-owned cooperative has over 5,200 locations in 60 countries. TV ads and helpful ‘how-to’ videos are a staple of the chain’s advertising campaign, with over twenty published in the period in question. Still, some exposure may be attributed to the activities of local stores engaging in charity work.
Methodology: YouGov BrandIndex collects data on thousands of brands every day. A brand’s Ad Awareness score is based on the question: “Which of the following consumer brands have you seen an advertisement for in the past two weeks?” Data from surveys of adults aged 18 years and above residing in the United States from March 26 and April 25, 2023. Ad Awareness scores are based on a four-week moving average. The change in scores for each brand is calculated by taking the difference between the highest and lowest scoring days within the period. Learn more about BrandIndex.