The top SA brands of 2008

The overall favourite brands in the country this year are:

• Coca-Cola
  
• SAB
  
• Nike
  
• Vodacom
  
• Pick ‘n Pay
  
• Eskom
  
• Nokia
  
• MTN
  
• Toyota
  
• BMW

It is interesting that while we have had the worst possible service from Eskom in the last year, it is still sixth overall. Its reputation online was clearly poor, with consumer protest sites such as www.eskomsucks.co.za being launched - this site is no. 5 on Google when you search on “Eskom”.

I am not surprised at Coca-Cola's first place position; it continues to reinvent and embrace the opportunities that advertising brings in new media. Its “Brrrr” campaign earlier in the year was an example of this: the communication crossed all channels, including mobile, in a large way. Although it could have worked on the optimisation of this campaign online (Brrrr ranks no.1 for the www.myvideo.co.za site), so that the search engines would pick up the brand site first.

Google is the top brand in the world and it says a lot that it doesn't feature in the Top 10 for South Africa. But I am willing to bet that next year it will make an entrance on the list, since the company has established a local presence in South Africa and is localising content and its applications.

When I looked at process used by Markinor, I see that there is still a dimension of measurement that is not being included and that is what consumers are recording online about brands. Face-to-face and telephonic interviews are great but often too spontaneous and not always accurate. A real measurement of brand sentiment is when people feel strongly enough about a brand to take a video showcasing the product, write a blog post of how amazing the service that they received was or enter a complaint on a consumer portal. Even worse is feeling so strongly that they take the time to build, launch and maintain a site that completely damages a brand's reputation.

Online mention tracking should also form part of the overall brand relationship score to really determine a 360 degree view of what the consumer sentiment is. One such tool is saidWot, and Markinor would do well to consider using this reputation management and brand tracking tool as part of the process for its next survey.