How the Brand Joy Lab measures joy
PETERMAYER’s Brand Joy Lab runs a monthly omnibus survey of U.S. consumers. People rate how much joy they get from experiences, products, and brands on a -3 to +5 scale. We report the results as the Joy Index, where 0 is neutral and 100 is the most joy possible.
Who is in the Brand Joy Lab panel?
The Brand Joy Lab surveys consumers across the United States every month. The database now holds 15,346 respondents, fielded August 2023 – October 2026.
What is the Joy Index?
The Joy Index is the Brand Joy Lab’s headline metric. Respondents rate their joy on a scale from -3 to +5. The Joy Index is the average rating multiplied by 20, so it runs from -60 to 100, with 0 as neutral. A positive score means people, on average, get joy from the thing being measured; a negative score means it takes joy away.
We always publish the Joy Index, never the raw average. When a finding comes from a multiple-choice or select-all question, we report it as a percentage of respondents.
What do the 16 territories of joy cover?
The Brand Joy Lab sorts everyday life into 16 territories, from rituals and the table to money, work, and the feed. Every question we ask maps to one of them, which lets us compare joy across categories that rarely get compared.
How do we decide what counts as a finding?
- Every number we publish comes from human survey responses, checked by hand before it goes live.
- We don’t build a claim on a difference smaller than about 10 points at typical sample sizes.
- We don’t make a claim about a whole territory from a single survey question.
- Consumer quotes are real open-ended responses. We never quote an answer choice as if a person said it.
- Every finding states its sample size and the dates it was fielded.
Is the Brand Joy Lab data available to download?
No. We publish findings, not the dataset. The raw responses and full survey instrument stay private. If you want to put the data to work on your brand, talk to us.
How should I cite the Brand Joy Lab?
Cite the report by name and credit “PETERMAYER’s Brand Joy Lab,” with the sample size and field dates listed on each finding. Browse all Brand Joy Lab reports.