The most popular brand in each state
Marketing agencies make it a priority to identify the nation's regional brand tastes — why people choose Coca-Cola over Pepsi, or Ford over Chrysler — in one part of the country over another. While the volumes of marketing research can point to the brands that are held in high regard in a given state — and why — much can be determined about a state's preference from something as simple as its Google search history.
A review of search results through Google Trends reveals some fascinating regional differences in search popularity for the nation's largest brands. Relative to other states, people are far more likely to search for McDonald's in Illinois than in North Carolina. Similarly, California residents are much more interested in Sony than in Nokia. Based on Google search index results of the most well-known companies in the country, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the most popular brands in each state.
The most popular searched brand in a state is not the most searched brand. Rather, it is the brand with the most searches relative to other states (as indicated by a Google search index value of 100). Another brand might have more searches within the state, but not the highest search volume relative to other states.
Based on Google search index results, there appears to be several distinct reasons for a population to search for a brand in much higher volume than in the rest of the country. One, as might be expected, has to do with the regional use of a product. Southwest Airlines, for example, is the most popular brand in New Mexico, a state located in a part of the country the airline serves frequently. In Ohio — a state with eight division I college football teams and at least six professional sports teams — ESPN is the most popular brand.
In other cases, the regional popularity of a brand can be the result of something as simple as a major factory or a corporate headquarters. In Michigan, Ford is the most popular brand. This fact is not surprising given that the automaker is headquartered in Detroit. Arkansas's most popular brand, Wal-Mart, is also headquartered in Bentonville. Bud Light is the most popular brand in Missouri, the original home of Anheuser-Busch.
In some cases, however, the reasons for a brand to have a very high search score in a given state is impossible to determine. For example, there is no easy answer as to why residents of Kentucky search for Microsoft's Xbox brand — relative to the state's total search volume — more often than in any other state.
In many cases, it may be that people are searching not for the brand itself but for something that shares the brand's name. For example, in Colorado, where Pepsi is the most popular brand, the high volume of searches may be related to Denver's 18,000+ capacity Pepsi Center, home to the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche. The Time Warner Cable arena in Charlotte may also explain North Carolina's relative high volume of Time Warner Cable searches.
People are likely searching for many of these brands because they are interested in learning specific information about them or want to shop for their products. A review of this list, however, reveals that some of these brands might be popular because of how people use Google search. More than one-fifth of the most popular brands are frequently accessed sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, and eBay. For whatever reason, it could be that individuals in those states are searching for these sites rather than navigating straight to them.
To identify the most popular brands in each state, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed Google's measure of search interest in each state for the 12 months through September 2015 for 209 well-known brand names. Data was retrieved from keyword search tool Google Trends, which provides an index value for the volume of searches for any given keyword. The most popular brand in a given state is the one with the highest index value. Google's measure of search interest is based on the number of queries for a given keyword in the state divided by the total Google search queries. This value is indexed and normalized to account for the highest point of interest for the period. If more than one brand had an index of 100 (the maximum value) in a given state, the brand with the highest nationwide search volume broke the tie. Search volumes were collected from Google AdWords keyword planner.
Here are the most popular brands in the 10 largest states. See the list of most popular brands in all 50 states at 24/7 Wall St.
California
> Brand: Yahoo
> Nationwide total brand searches: 70,901,530
An Internet portal and search engine, Yahoo is the most popular searched for brand on Google in California when compared to searches nationwide. The company was searched just over 11 million times over a 12 months period. Like many other tech companies, Yahoo is headquartered in California, which also may have contributed the especially strong interest in the company among state residents.
Texas
> Brand: American Airlines
> Nationwide total brand searches: 5,000,000
Roughly 719,000 of the 5 million total Google searches for American Airlines over the 12 months through September 2015 originated in Texas. It is perhaps not surprising that the airline is a popular search topic in the state as Fort Worth is home to American Airlines' headquarters and the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport is the fourth busiest in the United States.
Florida
> Brand: Bank of America
> Nationwide total brand searches: 13,600,000
While many American brands are unusually popular in Florida, including PayPal and Home Depot, no brand is more disproportionately popular in the Sunshine State than Bank of America. Over the 12 months of searches through September, 13.6 million searches were made nationwide for the bank. Bank of America is the nation's largest bank in terms of the value of deposits.
New York
> Brand: Twitter
> Nationwide total brand searches: 13,584,070
Of the roughly 13.6 million Google searches for the social media platform Twitter that occurred in the U.S. in the 12 months through September, slightly more than a million such searches originated in New York. Home to Wall Street, New York City is the finance capital of the world, and since the company's IPO in November 2013, Twitter has been a volatile, headline-grabbing stock. Since Twitter itself is web based, the high national search frequency may simply be users trying to access the platform. New York is one of the top five global cities based on the number of active Twitter accounts.
Illinois
> Brand: Walgreens
> Nationwide total brand searches: 10,938,380
Illinois is the only state in the country where Walgreens is the most popular brand based on Google's measure of search interest. Nationally, it is the most widely Googled drugstore with nearly 11 million searches. Walgreens is headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois, which likely contributed to the high brand awareness among state residents.
Pennsylvania
> Brand: Siemens
> Nationwide total brand searches: 206,270
International tech company Siemens employs around 46,000 people in the United States and operates in hundreds of countries. While the company has a wide global presence, Pennsylvanians have a particularly strong interest in Siemens. This could be partly due to the fact that the company has 36 locations in the state, far more than in most other states.
Ohio
> Brand: ESPN
> Nationwide total brand searches: 24,900,000
Ohio is home to eight NCAA Division I college football teams, including Ohio State, ranked by the Associated Press as the No. 1 team overall. Ohio is also home to numerous professional sports teams outside of football, and considering that the most unusually high volume searched brand in the state is ESPN, it appears that Ohioans take their sports very seriously.
Georgia
> Brand: Family Dollar Stores
> Nationwide total brand searches: 1,000,000
Family Dollar Stores is the most uniquely Googled brand in Georgia. Of the roughly 1 million searches of the discount store nationwide, about 57,590 originated in Georgia. In the wake of the recession, Family Dollar has grown substantially. As a discount store, it may have high brand awareness in Georgia, one of the poorest states in the nation. Family Dollar is headquartered in North Carolina, Georgia's neighbor to the north.
North Carolina
> Brand: Time Warner Cable
> Nationwide total brand searches: 5,914,370
Roughly 11% of the nearly 6 million Google searches for Time Warner Cable over the 12 months through the end of September 2015 came from North Carolina. One likely explanation for the Tar Heel State's disproportionate share of searches for the brand may actually have little to do with the brand itself. The Time Warner Cable Arena is located in North Carolina's biggest city, Charlotte. The venue hosts professional sporting events, concerts, and political rallies.
Michigan
> Brand: Ford
> Nationwide total brand searches: 1,220,000
Michigan is home to Detroit, the Motor City, which serves as the headquarters of the Big Three car manufacturers: Chrysler, GM, and Ford. The last of these, Ford, has the most disproportionately high search volume relative to the brand's searches nationally.
24/7 Wall St. is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.