BrandSpark International

What BrandSpark International does

BrandSpark International is a Toronto-based market research firm founded in 2001 that designs and operates large-scale consumer-voted award programs centered on brand trust and product innovation. Each year the firm surveys more than 90,000 consumers across the U.S., Canada, and U.K., generating 100,000+ brand evaluations per market to rank most-trusted brands in hundreds of shopping categories (359 in the U.S., 292+ in Canada, 166 in the U.K. for 2026). The core programs are the BrandSpark Most Trusted Awards (since 2013/2014), the Best New Product Awards (now in its 23rd year in Canada), and the newly launched Worth It! Awards (November 2025 with Newsweek), each producing trademark-protected seals and research-backed claims that winning brands license for use in packaging, advertising, and digital channels.

The firm's underlying technology consists of a proprietary Brand Trust Framework developed over more than a decade of research, an annual survey methodology with unaided brand-trust evaluation, and TrustSpark.ai — an AI-powered insights platform that processes 12 years of structured trust data to deliver demographic, competitive, and trend reports. The firm partners with Newsweek in a flagship co-branded arrangement that distributes Most Trusted Awards rankings to over 47 million monthly users in the U.S. and U.K., and holds MRIA Gold Seal and ESOMAR accreditations.

BrandSpark monetizes through tiered promotional-rights licensing for winning brands, custom market-research and insights services, and add-on TrustSpark.ai reports. Enterprise customers span consumer packaged goods (Eggland's Best, Lassonde, VEGA), retail (Walmart, Aldi), telecommunications (Bell Canada), insurance (Intact), real estate (RE/MAX), and beauty (Revlon Canada). The company is privately held, founder-operated, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, and operates without disclosed external funding.

Name

BrandSpark International

Legal name

BrandSpark International Inc.

Website

https://brandsparkmosttrusted.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2001

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

BrandSpark International is a Toronto-based market research firm founded in 2001 that runs consumer-voted Most Trusted, Best New Product, and Worth It! award programs across the U.S., Canada, and U.K., licensing the seals and TrustSpark.ai insights to enterprise CPG, retail, and service brands.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Market Research Services

akta.pro primary industry

Brand Consulting, Audits & Research (Brand Health, Equity, Competitive) (BPAFAEAJ)

akta.pro secondary industry

Brand Guidelines, Governance & Brand Management (BPAFAEAF)

Keywords

• Consumer market research
• Brand trust measurement
• Consumer-voted awards
• Market research services
• Shopper insights

Headquarters

HQ city

Toronto

HQ country

Canada

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Award Licensing and Promotion Rights: Although the award is earned entirely through consumer vote, purchasing promotional rights is required for brands to license the BrandSpark Most Trusted Awards seal and research-backed claims. Tiered licensing options are available to meet different brand goals.
2. Market Research and Insights: BrandSpark provides category-specific insights and custom reports to winning brands and other interested parties through its TrustSpark.ai platform and direct consulting services.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

BrandSpark International runs annual large-scale consumer surveys across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom to identify the brands consumers trust most and the new products they rate highest. The firm then licenses trademark-protected award seals and supporting research insights to consumer brands, retailers, and service companies for use in packaging, advertising, and digital marketing. It also offers the TrustSpark.ai platform and deeper market research deliverables to the same brand and retail clients.

Product overview

BrandSpark International operates a portfolio of consumer-voted award programs: the BrandSpark Most Trusted Awards (identifying most trusted brands across 359 categories in the U.S., Canada, and U.K.), the BrandSpark Best New Product Awards (recognizing new product innovation), and the Worth It! Awards (in partnership with Newsweek, recognizing value-based quality). The company also offers TrustSpark.ai™️, a proprietary AI-powered insights platform that processes 12 years of trust survey data to generate demographic breakdowns, competitive comparisons, and trend analysis for winning brands.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• TrustSpark.ai: Proprietary insights platform powered by 12 years of trust data, using AI to generate detailed reports including trust shares by demographics, competitive brand comparisons, and tailored recommendations.

Products and services

• BrandSpark Most Trusted Awards

Quantifiable outcome

• 11% sales lift when adding BMTA seal to e-commerce product images
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers9 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability2 records

Feature2 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• NewsweekflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2013Newsweek publishes BrandSpark Most Trusted Awards rankings through a co-branded partnership in the U.S. and UK markets, reaching over 47 million monthly users. The partnership adds editorial credibility and media distribution for the awards program.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Ipsos: Global market research firm with extensive brand, advertising, and loyalty research practices. Competes with BrandSpark on enterprise brand-equity research RFPs and benefits from significantly larger scale and geographic reach.
• Forrester Research: Global research and advisory firm producing brand-experience and customer-experience research for enterprise clients. Overlaps with BrandSpark on the brand-differentiation and customer-trust advisory work that supports its licensing and insights revenue.
• Kantar (BrandZ / Millward Brown): Global market research leader producing the BrandZ brand valuation rankings and broad brand-equity studies. Competes with BrandSpark for enterprise brand-measurement budgets and offers a much larger analytics suite, though focused more on valuation than trust.
• Edelman Trust Barometer: Annual global trust study published by Edelman, covering institutional and brand trust across dozens of markets. While a broader institutional study than BrandSpark's consumer-voted CPG rankings, it competes for the same enterprise 'trust' mindshare and research budgets.
• NielsenIQ: Global consumer-measurement giant with broad CPG insights and brand-tracking products. Competes for the same CPG and retailer research spend and offers more extensive syndicated panels and analytics infrastructure.
• J.D. Power: Long-established consumer-trust and quality ratings firm covering automotive, financial services, and other categories. Operates a broader portfolio of syndicated trust/quality studies than BrandSpark and competes for similar enterprise brand-research budgets.

Direct peers

• The RepTrak Company (formerly Reputation Institute): Specializes in corporate reputation and trust measurement, producing the annual RepTrak 100 and related rankings. Closely comparable to BrandSpark in research methodology and enterprise customer base, with a focus on corporate reputation rather than CPG brand trust.
• Brand Keys: U.S.-based customer loyalty and engagement research firm that runs its own consumer-survey-based loyalty and trust awards across categories. Closely comparable to BrandSpark in methodology (consumer survey-based rankings), target market (CPG and brands), and business model (award licensing plus research).
• Harris Poll / EquiTrend (The Harris Poll): Runs the EquiTrend and Harris Poll EquiTrend studies, consumer-voted brand-equity rankings across CPG and service categories. Directly comparable to BrandSpark's Most Trusted Awards in study design, category breadth, and B2B brand-licensing model.

Emerging players

• Morning Consult: Fast-growing consumer intelligence platform running large-scale brand tracking and consumer research. Overlaps with BrandSpark's TrustSpark.ai ambitions around always-on, AI-driven brand insights and competes for the same enterprise marketing-research dollars.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/brandspark-most-trusted-awards

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about BrandSpark International