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Zara is the most recommended brand in the U.S., according to a new survey conducted by research data and analytics group YouGov.
According to YouGov’s 2026 Most Recommended Brands ranking, 90.5 percent of the current Zara customers surveyed say that they would recommend the brand. While the next two brands—Lush (90.3 percent) and Savage X Fenty (90.1 percent)—are also in the fashion/beauty sector, the remainder of the top 10 includes such major players in other areas as Rolex, Bloomberg and Toyota.
Toyota was number one in the automotive sector at 89.2 percent. Samuel Adams (88.7 percent) led in the alcoholic beverage category and Kerrygold (87.9 percent) topped its competitors in the CPG food sector.
Online vacation rental platform Vrbo had the largest year-over-year improvement, rising 9.2 percentage points, from 69.2 percent to 78.4 percent. WE tv was next with an 8.3-point increase, while Live Nation was up 7.7 points.
Those numbers would seem to indicate a high level of overall consumer response when it comes to recommendations, but the U.S. is far from the top of countries with regard to how many people share their experiences with brands.
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Using that yardstick, the UAE lands in first place, with 95 percent of respondents saying that they had provided feedback about a brand in the last three months. Hong Kong (89 percent) and Mexico (87 percent) come next—but the U.S. is in 13th place, with 63 percent of a brand’s customers voicing their opinions of the brand.
Surprisingly, reporting positive experiences is significantly more popular than making negative judgments. For U.S. respondents, 49 percent said they were more likely to share positive brand experiences, with only 21 percent opting for negative comments about those experiences.
In addition, women were slightly more prone than men to report negative experiences (23 percent vs. 19 percent)—but they were also more likely to report positive experiences (51 percent vs. 46 percent).
When it comes to the reason why they share their experiences, 46 percent said they wanted to help others discover something good. For negative experience sharers, 52 percent wanted to warn others, while 49 percent said the experience fell below expectations and 44% wanted to hold the brand accountable.
“Recommendation is one of the strongest signals a brand can earn because it reflects a customer’s willingness to put their own experience behind an endorsement,” said Ryan Gross, SVP Data Products, Client Services at YouGov. “This year’s leaders show there is no single path to customer advocacy. Brands across categories are earning strong recommendations by creating experiences customers believe are worth sharing. And with Americans considerably more likely to share positive brand experiences than negative ones, consistently delivering for customers can create a powerful advantage.”
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