Consumers love Costco—and are more passionate about that love than they are for any other supermarket in the US, according to the newly launched NetBase Brand Passion Index, which measures the intensity of consumer passion for brands among users of online communities.

In anticipation of Memorial Day barbeque and picnic shopping, the inaugural index measures consumers' emotional involvement around major US supermarket brands.

Costco's high love score (large green bubble, below) is a function of the intensity of love expressed for Costco in online conversations—as well as the high level of online chatter in the context of that emotion.

Whole Foods Market is a close second among the brands analyzed, registering a high love score—but with lower intensity (smaller bubble), because fans are not as verbal about that brand online.

Wal-Mart is the most hated of all supermarket brands analyzed—and consumers are very active in expressing that emotion.

Meanwhile, consumers are relatively dispassionate about Safeway and Kroger, indicating they merely like those brands.

Using measures across a spectrum of emotions—love, like, dislike, and hate—the Netbase Brand Passion Index reads and understands what people are saying online, then surfaces and aggregates those likes and dislikes—as well as the emotions and behaviors associated with brands. 

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The following excerpts from online discussions capture the passion that consumers feel about the most loved brand, Costco, and the most hated brand, Wal-Mart:

• "Love Costco...always quality and almost always the best price so you don't have to shop around."
• "I love Costco like most everyone else, I stock up on the same host of essentials at Costco—dog food, toilet paper, paper towels, nutrigrain bars (my girls love 'em), diet coke ('cause I'm a diet coke whore), baby wipes and pull-ups for my youngest, great toys and supplies for the holidays, camera memory sticks, and DVDs, especially Disney ones."
• "As much as I hate Walmart, when it comes down to it, there is nowhere else in this town to buy half of the things I need, and I'm certainly not going to spend the gas money to drive down to Dayton to buy what I want."
• "One Sunday in March 2010 was just another ordinary day to shop at Walmart (Believe me, I hate it) in Washington Township, New Jersey—people were grocery-shopping in the supercenter, kids were throwing their usual tantrums in hopes for gaining toys, and teens do their pranks there."

"We started the Brand Passion Index because it is an informative and fun way to benchmark companies across brands," said Jonathan Spier, CEO and cofounder, NetBase. "This valuable comparison helps to normalize qualitative data into quantitative reports, helping brands see not only the intensity of passion consumers have, but more importantly why consumers feel the way they do."

About the data: To generate the May Index, ConsumerBase analyzed supermarket-related online conversations across the Web over the previous 12 months. Future index readings will analyze other brand categories and will be published on a monthly basis on the NetBase blog.