Brand Intent & Cultural Ghosts
Our new tracker service looks at how far intent can take us
What does a brand have to do today to mean something, to connect with its customers in a way they value? I was thinking this after looking at the window of Just Salad in the city and wondering if any one who passed the kales-to-go place knew what the ‘purpose’ attached to the glass in broad lettering really meant. Did the strategist who ‘defined the brand’ know what purpose means? Or the window display team?
If saying it out loud doesn’t (necessarily) make you a good brand, what makes a better brand?
A few weeks back, YouGov published a 2026 top brands report and I hoped to find a list of progressive brands cutting through on the world stage (or is that aisle). But I was disappointed: what I found is a list of old favorites (at best) and cultural ghosts. Some on the list were the sporting nod alongs and others were just brands you last saw - maybe with your mom - when do did the grocery run together: WhatsApp, Samsung, YouTube, Google, adidas, Nike, Netflix, Dettol, Colgate, Toyota.
Dettol??
To find a better list of better brands (and retailers!) I retooled an aspect of Fodda. I told you about Fodda, right? It’s the platform that helps your AI become a domain expert. (Try it on Claude, for example, the entry-level is free to use.) And now, I have rerouted the way it traverses its knowledge graph to track brand intelligence. Unlike YouGov, it gets your AI to traverse across dozens of curated expert sources and asks a slightly different question: not just which brands do people like, but which brands are actually shaping culture, behavior, and systems.
Fodda gave us this very different kind of list - less about scale, more about intent. Less about satisfaction, more about participation.
Fodda’s Top 10 Brands (& Retailers!) of 2026
(so far, as of 11.17pm ET last night)
A purpose-led ranking built from curated trend graphs, where each brand shows up with evidence - not just awareness - across community, social, or ecological signals. These aren’t perfect brands. And they’re not necessarily the biggest. But they’re the ones consistently appearing in the Fodda graph data when you look for companies trying to redefine their role.
1. Patagonia
I know… roll your eyes already but wait…. Patagonia sits at the gravitational center of the resale and repair conversation, and the way you can tell is by looking at who’s circling it. Fodda’s trends maps an entire competitive set — H&M, Vinted, Circulae, eBay, Lululemon, New Balance — building buyback, refurbishment, and resale infrastructure that Patagonia formalized over a decade ago through Worn Wear. The 2022 ownership transfer placing the company in service of the planet still lingers as the strongest structural commitment in the category.
The work also keeps showing up in physical form. Patagonia’s restoration of the 1916 Los Cipreses chalet in Bariloche — using cypress, larch, and period-appropriate construction — turned a derelict Argentine property into a hybrid retail store, museum, Worn Wear repair workshop, and event venue. It’s the kind of move that makes the operating model legible at the level of place.
The cultural attention follows. Patagonia’s Wikipedia pageviews are 2.4x of H&M and 6x Vinted inside the same cluster. The brand that built the model still owns the conversation, even as the chasers do the chasing.
2. adidas
adidas appears repeatedly when you look at how global brands are navigating culture - not perfectly, but with more evidence than most. The Loom Hood Collection credits specific neighborhoods, artisans, and even geographic coordinates across Dubai, Riyadh, and Cairo, validated by The Zay Initiative as a heritage authority. The recent Bob Marley estate and Jamaica Football Federation collaboration - Handball Spezial and SL72 silhouettes carrying “Football is Freedom” - is the kind of cultural credit work that goes beyond product. Add in Parley Ocean Plastic, and you start to see a company experimenting with how scale and sensitivity might coexist.
A quiet flip is happening in the data. adidas Wikipedia traffic spiked in mid-April - well above its baseline - likely tied to World Cup buildup. YouGov ranks Nike just behind adidas globally, but the cultural attention is moving in adidas’ direction at the exact moment a global sport moment lands.
3. Too Good To Go
Too Good To Go is one of the clearest examples of a business where the model and the outcome are tightly aligned. The platform connects consumers to surplus food from retailers and restaurants, turning waste into inventory. As it grows, the impact scales with it — now more than 400 million meals saved across 200,000+ partners.
The attention pattern is episodic, not steady. Wikipedia averages 258 daily pageviews but spiked to 896 — almost 4x baseline — suggesting a meaningful media moment.
4. Nike
Nike is still a giant, but the interesting shift is how it’s reframing what it stands for. CMO Nicole Graham has described the brand as speaking to “a generation searching for meaning, emotional resilience, and authenticity.” More concretely, its trail-running programs frame access to nature as a form of community development, not just sport.
The clearest recent example is Manor Place, opened with Palace Skateboards in a restored 1895 Victorian bathhouse in Elephant and Castle. It’s free, open to the public six days a week, and houses a concrete skatepark that mechanically rises to reveal an underground football pitch, plus a free nine-month residency for six emerging South London creatives. Palace co-founder Gareth Skewis described it as wanting to make “community” mean something rather than be “bandied about.” It’s the most ambitious community-infrastructure move from a sports brand in years.
Nike also leads on owned community channels through Substack-style publishing with In The Margins rather than relying entirely on platforms. On YouGov, the brand sits just behind adidas - but the story here is less about position and more about how Nike defends it: depth over moments.
5. LEGO
LEGO tends to avoid the spotlight, but it consistently shows up in the systems. The brand has formalized an entire aftermarket economy through BrickLink, turning what could have been a grey market into a structured extension of the brand. LEGO Ideas continues to act as a fan-to-retail pipeline, and smaller examples like Fritz Bricks — a veteran-owned community store in Fenton, Michigan hosting events and competitions — point to how deeply the ecosystem runs.
The latest move is bigger. At CES 2026, LEGO unveiled SMART Play — interactive bricks, tags, and minifigures that respond to each other in real time through light, sound, and behavior, with no app or screen required. They’re calling it the most significant evolution to the LEGO System-in-Play since the minifigure in 1978. Worth noting what it isn’t: another tablet experience for kids. In a category racing toward more screens, LEGO bet on more physical.
Culturally, the brand holds steady. LEGO averages over 2,000 daily Wikipedia pageviews - quietly outperforming many consumer brands. The work compounds without needing to announce itself.
6. Octopus Energy
Energy is one of the hardest categories to rebuild trust in, and Octopus is one of the few companies attempting it from first principles. Cleaner sourcing, transparent pricing, and a strong technology layer define the model. The Kraken platform is now licensed to other utilities — usually the clearest signal that something actually works.
The data shows steady build rather than spikes. Attention is trending up.
7. Vinted
Vinted has done something simple but important: it made secondhand fashion feel normal. Not niche, not effortful — just part of everyday behavior. That alone is a major shift.
More interesting is how it’s starting to shape culture, not just facilitate transactions. Its “Too Many” film sparked backlash against Singles’ Day on Xiaohongshu — effectively inserting an anti-consumption message into the world’s biggest shopping moment. That’s a resale platform influencing behavior at scale.
Momentum is clear. Traffic and attention are trending upward, and Vinted consistently appears alongside Patagonia in recommerce conversations.
8. The RealReal
Luxury resale only works if people trust it, and The RealReal has spent years building that infrastructure — authentication, logistics, curation. It hasn’t been smooth, but its emergence from Chapter 11 with $500M in financing suggests the model is stabilizing.
This is less a momentum story and more a category one. Cultural attention is modest, but consistent. More interestingly, The RealReal now appears alongside brands like Nike in community-building efforts — a sign that resale players are evolving beyond transactions into relationships.
9. IKEA
IKEA is easy to overlook because it feels so familiar, but behind that familiarity is a fairly aggressive shift in how a mass retailer operates. Buyback schemes, circular targets, and major renewable energy investments point to a company reworking its system at scale. The recent IKEA Housewarming Pop-Up in Union Square — a curated kitchen environment with planning studios, food, and personalized FRAKTA bags — shows the brand is also learning to do urban experience, not just suburban scale.
There’s an honest gap here. IKEA doesn’t show up strongly in Fodda’s trend layer, which suggests its work is more operational than cultural right now. But the scale of those commitments, paired with moments like Union Square, makes it hard to ignore.
10. Mercadona
Mercadona is probably the least visible brand here globally, and one of the most consistent locally. The Spanish supermarket has built long-term supplier relationships, pays above industry norms, and operates with near-zero food waste.
It’s not designed to be talked about - but the data occasionally spikes, suggesting moments of attention breaking through. Like Octopus and Too Good To Go, it sits outside the core trend graph coverage. Which, again, is part of the story.
Where Fodda and YouGov Overlapped
Two brands appeared on both lists - adidas and Nike - but the overlap is more interesting than the agreement.
We had adidas ranked higher than YouGov did, and by some distance. Of all the YouGov top 10, adidas has the strongest community and cultural-equity story when you look at the actual evidence in the trend layer.
Nike is also strong on emotional and community signals — but there’s a real divergence in attention right now. An wikipedia spike for adidas is meaningful, especially against Nike’s flatter cultural baseline. If the World Cup is the catalyst, the question is whether adidas can convert it into the kind of community depth Nike has spent a decade building.
Cultural Ghosts
When we compared the Fodda and YouGov lists, a different pattern emerged - brands that rank highly with consumers, but barely register in the trend layer. We started calling them cultural ghosts.
Five of YouGov’s top 10 fall into this category. They score high on quality, value, and satisfaction in YouGov’s six metrics, but generate almost no editorial discussion or case-study presence in Fodda’s curated graphs. That’s not a bug in either tool - it’s the difference between liked and culturally generative.
Samsung — #2 globally on YouGov. Trusted, everywhere, essential — but largely absent from the trend conversations shaping retail, culture, or community. A brand people rely on, not one redefining behavior.
Dettol — High on trust and safety. Shows up strongly in consumer sentiment, but almost no presence in curated trend narratives. It solves a problem well — and stops there.
Colgate — Mass familiarity, consistent performance. But no meaningful role in the emerging stories around wellness, sustainability, or identity that other personal care brands are starting to explore.
Toyota — Leader in hybrid efficiency. But relatively quiet in the conversations around electrification, community, or mobility ecosystems. Strong on engineering, less visible in cultural direction.
Netflix — Still highly rated by consumers. But in the trend layer, it shows up inside narratives that feel like they’re maturing or fragmenting — content overload, shifting fandoms, changing viewing behaviors.
YouTube (honorable mention) — Ubiquitous and still culturally relevant, but increasingly part of conversations about saturation and fatigue rather than new creative frontiers.
WhatsApp (edge case) — Critical infrastructure for emerging behaviors. Appears in trends around private groups and “whisper networks” — but as a tool people use, not a brand driving the shift itself.
Quiet Branding : How Far Can Intent Take You
It’s worth pausing on the markets these “intent” brands are actually playing in, because purpose isn’t a soft positioning - it’s a market-sizing argument.
The global secondhand apparel market sits at roughly $53.7 billion in 2026 and is forecast to grow at 11–16% annually, depending on the analyst, reaching anywhere from $154 billion by 2036 to $486 billion by 2031. The online resale segment alone grew 23% in 2024, several times faster than the broader retail clothing market. Patagonia, Vinted, and The RealReal aren’t on the fringes of fashion - they’re operating at the center of its highest-growth corridor. And 32% of consumers who bought secondhand last year purchased directly from a brand, meaning the volume is actively migrating toward branded channels. The brands that built the infrastructure early are now positioned to capture it.
Food rescue is even larger and more under-funded. Food loss and waste costs the global economy roughly $1 trillion annually, accounts for 8–10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and represents over a third of all food produced. Against that, only $0.1 billion is invested annually in reduction efforts — a fraction of the estimated $48–50 billion needed. Too Good To Go and Mercadona are operating inside one of the largest, most under-funded efficiency opportunities in the global economy. Every dollar invested in food-waste reduction returns $14, and up to $92 at the city level.
Renewable energy retail is moving on the same scale - the global market is on track to grow from roughly $1.2 trillion to over $2.4 trillion this decade, with retail electrification (EVs, heat pumps, residential solar) the fastest-moving consumer-facing layer. Octopus’s Kraken platform now manages tens of millions of customer accounts globally for licensee utilities. The model is the product, and the model is exporting.
Branded community infrastructure is harder to size, but the underlying shift is clear. LEGO’s retail network has grown to 1,112 stores across 54 markets with consumer sales up 66% since 2021. Manor Place is part of a broader move from brands toward owned, free-access community spaces — IKEA Union Square, Patagonia’s Bariloche chalet, Fritz Bricks. Small in raw spend, disproportionate in cultural and customer-acquisition value.
The pattern across all four: every brand on this list is positioned in a category that is either growing 10%+ annually or addressing a multi-billion-dollar inefficiency. The cultural ghosts aren’t just absent from the conversation. They’re absent from the growth.
What Makes A Brand Important Today?
Important brands operate as systems. They don’t just communicate. The brand sits inside the infrastructure. You can use it without knowing the messaging, and the work continues whether or not anyone is watching. Compare that to brands whose purpose lives mostly in the deck (or a window!!).
They create brand-geography. Patagonia restoring a 1916 chalet in Bariloche. The important brands are increasingly local somewhere — not in a marketing sense, but in a built sense.
They invite participation. Audiences don’t want to be broadcast to. Intent brands are systems that people enter and shape.
They take credit and give it. This sounds small, but it might be the most underrated marker. The brands moving culture forward are the ones willing to share the spotlight - sometimes literally share the equity.
They make their model legible. The reason Patagonia commands 2.4x H&M’s Wikipedia attention inside the same recommerce trend isn’t because Patagonia is louder. It’s because anyone can see how the model works, and it makes sense top to bottom. Same with Too Good To Go (the app is the impact), Octopus (Kraken licensing proves it works), Mercadona (the supplier loyalty is visible in the shelves). Important brands don’t need to be explained.
Overall, cultural attention now moves on a different axis. YouGov measures whether people like a brand. Fodda’s trend layer measures whether the brand is participating in the conversations actively reshaping behavior. Five of YouGov’s top 10 — Samsung, Toyota, Colgate, Dettol, Netflix - score high on one and almost zero on the other. They’re not failing; they’re just not in the room where the next thing is being figured out.
- Hope you enjoyed this Fodda analysis. Try the brand tracker yourself. Add this MCP URL to your paid desktop Claude or Perplexity as a connector herehttps://mcp.fodda.ai/mcp?api_key=sk_trial_all&id=psfk_weekly