The business of measuring brand momentum has always had something of the horse-race about it — which names are up, which are down, and whether any of it means what the people compiling the lists say it means.
Still, the third quarter of 2026 produced a leaderboard that, if nothing else, reflects the preoccupations of the American consumer at this particular moment. Skims, the shapewear and loungewear company founded by Kim Kardashian, was among the brands that gained ground, according to new data. So was Liberty Mutual, the insurance giant whose advertising presence has become as unavoidable as the perils it insures against, and Pixar, the animation studio that has been part of the Walt Disney Company since 2006.
The gains suggest, if not a pattern, then at least a mood. Skims has built its following through a combination of celebrity ownership and the sort of body-inclusive marketing that would have seemed radical a decade ago and now seems merely expected. Liberty Mutual, for its part, has continued to spend heavily on television, where insurance advertisers have long waged their peculiar war of mascots and jingles. (The emu remains employed.)
Pixar's presence on the list is perhaps the most interesting, given that the studio has spent recent years navigating the uncertain terrain between theatrical releases and streaming debuts on Disney+. That audiences — or at least the metrics that claim to measure brand sentiment — still respond to the Pixar name suggests that the lamp and the bouncing ball retain some of their old magic.
Whether any of this will hold into the fourth quarter, when the holiday advertising season transforms the landscape into something rather more crowded, remains to be seen. The leaderboard, like the brands upon it, is a snapshot — clear enough in the moment, and already beginning to blur.
Original story published in adage.com: "Macy’s ushers in the holidays with Melissa Joan Hart, Adam Devine and a revamped Santaland - Ad Age"