A report released by YouGov Brand Index on Oct. 31 has revealed several unexpected rankings for two major Trump brands. According to the report, Ivanka Trump's apparel brand is losing popularity among Republicans. But it gets weirder: Her brand is actually becoming more popular among Democrats and independents. Not to cause confusion, though, the majority of people who rated Ivanka's brand positively are still conservative.
According to the report, both Trump Hotels and the Ivanka Trump brand are ranked among the lowest 10 brands out of the more than 1,600 tracked by the index. YouGov tracks these brands daily, among consumers ages 18 and over. The results reflect consumer perception on a negative to positive numbered scale.
As for Ivanka's brand, YouGov has been tracking it since May. Since then, while reportedly enjoying a short spike around the time that Ivanka's book, Women Who Work, was released, Republican perception of the Ivanka brand has since declined, coming in even lower than when the tracking started six months ago. In turn, Democratic perception of the brand has actually steadily increased toward the positive end of the spectrum. However, as it stands, Democrats still have the lowest-ranked perception of the Ivanka Trump brand, and Republicans still have the highest. Independents, predictably, sit right in the middle.
A spokesperson for YouGov told Business Insider that most of the thirty lowest-ranking brands are cable companies, energy drinks, and dating websites. Additionally, the major Trump Hotel competitors are all reportedly doing better in consumer-ranked perception than the president's eponymous company. (Think: Four Seasons and the Ritz-Carlton.)
YouGov surveyed 4,800 people representative of the U.S. population in order to get these figures, according to Axios.
In the last year, the Ivanka Trump brand has been been the subject of several controversies. Last year, the #GrabYourWallet campaign sought to boycott Trump family brands as a way to protest various aspects of the family's sociopolitical opinions and scandals during the presidential election. As the movement gained momentum, a number of retailers began to drop the Ivanka Trump line. Generally, the stores didn't publicly relate the decision to politics, but instead pointed to the economics.
Nordstrom was among the stores who chose to drop the brand, and partially due to President Trump's tweeting about it, was one of the retailers which garnered the most attention. In a statement to Fortune on Feb. 2, the day the drop was announced, a spokesperson for Nordstrom said that they "make buying decisions based on performance." She explained: “In this case, based on the brand’s performance, we’ve decided not to buy it for this season.”
President Trump then tweeted about it on Feb. 8: "My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!"
Nordstrom was among a long list of other retailers who all declined to continue carrying the Ivanka Trump brand around the same time.
Back in January, before her father was inaugurated, Ivanka announced she would be stepping down from her executive positions within her eponymous company. Ivanka explained the move in a Facebook post:
My husband, Jared, and I will be moving with our family to Washington, D.C., where Jared will serve as Senior Advisor to the President. I plan to take time to settle our three young children into their new home and schools.
YouGov did not offer detailed reasoning in its report for the shift in either of the brands' popularity among the three political groups. Ultimately, however, it seems that both sides of the spectrum appear to be leveling out in their opinions, at least when it comes to Ivanka brand apparel.
