Retail brands performed particularly well during the pandemic—with Target and Costco making big gains in “brand intimacy” in the past year, according to a new study by brand consultancy MBLM. Apple, always a strong brand, got even stronger, holding the place it won last year atop Amazon as No. 1 overall.

Some brands that saw their ratings spike in the first year of the pandemic, including Zoom, Lysol and Purell, also either held their ground or moved even higher. Others that saw a strong spike in sentiment last year, including Walmart, dropped a bit.

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MBLM (pronounced Emblem) has been compiling rankings, based on annual summer surveys of 3,000 consumers, for more than a decade. In this second year of the study during the COVID-19 pandemic, rankings proved particularly fluid, according to Managing Partner Mario Natarelli.

Costco made a big leap to break into the top 10. Toyota became the first non-U.S. automotive brand to lead its category and Harley-Davidson was among the 10 brand intimacy winners.

Brand intimacy is a complex scorecard. It incorporates how people rank brands on fulfillment (performance vs. expectations), indulgence (whether the brand is associated with moments of pampering or gratification), identity (whether the brand represents an aspirational image) enhancement (whether the brand makes people’s lives better), ritual (whether the brand is incorporated into daily actions and nostalgia (whether the brand creates warm feelings.)

Natarelli says brand intimacy has a particularly strong impact on profit and share price. Collectively, brands that ranked high on intimacy this year generated $16 billion more in profit than those that didn’t.

Apple, always strong, came on even stronger. The percentage of people saying they can’t live without the brand rose eight points to 48%. The percentage of people saying they are willing to pay 20% more for its products than they would for those of competitors also rose eight points, to 29%.

There were significant age, gender and income divisions. Amazon beat Apple among people aged 45-64. Costco was the top brand among people with household incomes of more than $150,000. Target did particularly well among females, customers with household incomes of $35,000 to $100,000 and those between the ages of 18 and 34.

“We saw some brands kind of spike at the beginning of the pandemic but fade,” says Natarelli, which has made the list more fluid than normal. Among brands that held up well in year two of the pandemic are Zoom and Lysol. They ranked second and third, respectively, among all brands for their response to COVID-19. Although they didn’t hit the top 10, some food brands did particularly well, including Nabisco and Chick-Fil-A—the latter leading all brands in the percentage of people willing to pay 20% more for its products.

Walmart was a star of the early pandemic but faded some this year, Natarelli says. Target, ranked particularly high on indulgence, gave customers a superior store experience.

Toyota and Harley Davidson are two automotive brands that made the top 10 in different ways, Natarelli says. Toyota scored high on fulfilling practical needs, while Harley has more of an aspirational appeal, he says.

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