The best brands of 2004

At the launch on Tuesday, 14 September, attended by most of the suits in the industry and held at the favoured-venue of the moment, Summer Place in Hyde Park, the incorrigible David Bullard (best MC I've seen in a long time), got through the 33 awards in just over 30 minutes, with a brevity and humour that had the audience applauding.

The Encyclopaedia, published by Affinity Publishing in association with the Sunday Times, celebrated 10 years of publishing excellence, and includes all the detail of the Sunday Times/Markinor Top Brands Survey, which will be published in full in the Sunday Times this weekend.

Apart from the full Business-to-consumer survey on the top 10 brands, the coolest brands, the favoured brands across various categories and the most popular personalities - as a further value add to the annual survey, Markinor conducted an additional branding survey among the top echelon of South Africa's business community to provide a brand health measurement, based on the opinion of South Africa's top management.

Top of the business media was (no prizes here!) the Sunday Times Business Times, followed by Business day and the Financial Mail.

BUSINESS-TO-CONSUMER

According to the Markinor/Sunday Times Top Brands Business-to-Consumer Survey 2004, a brand is considered to be the energy of a company and this, in effect, dictates its personality. It not only tells us who a company is and what they do, but also distinguishes one organization from another. By its brand, a company communicates a clear message to all its stakeholders and it is, therefore of utmost importance that this message targets its audience in a manner that exceeds expectations.

It is with this in mind that Markinor has been conducting a branding survey annually since 1992 to provide businesses, investors and the public with a brand health measurement. Until 2000, the findings related only to spontaneous awareness and levels of trust and confidence in a particular brand in several categories. In 2001, Markinor also incorporated a commitment/loyalty factor into the survey. These three scores have been combined to produce a Brand Relationship Score, which as Markinor states in Brands & Branding, is a more substantial measurement of a brand's health in the South African context.

SABC 1 is the convincing leader in the television sector, with an impressive brand relationship score. It is followed by SABC 2, etv and in fourth place, SABC 3.

The radio category is highly fragmented with a wide number of radio stations vying for listeners. Ukhozi FM is the clear favourite based on its leading awareness, trust and confidence, as well as its loyalty scores, followed by Metro FM and Umhlobo Wenene.

As far as magazines go, Bona magazine, launched 50 years ago continues to improve its market penetration. The only other magazine to achieve a brand relationship score of more than 15% is Drum. You magazine is third.

It's the battle of the birds in the fast-food and restaurant chains, with all the chicken brands competing for the top three slots: KFC continues to lead, followed by Chicken Licken and then Nando's.

The Top Ten

South Africa's coolest brand

"Cool", while not easy to define, resulted in this category being dominated by clothing and accessory brands. The top 10 are:
1. Nike
2. Coca-Cola
3. Levi's
4. Adidas
5. Diesel
6. Soviet
7. Nokia
8. Billabong
9. Reebok
10. LG

Most admired companies in South Africa

The most admired companies have remained similar over the past few years, with Coca-Cola remaining in a steady first place, as they continue to invest in advertising, sponsorship and promotions, as well as social upliftment initiatives. The top three are:
1. Coca-Cola
2. Eskom
3. Telkom

Most admired South African brand overall

The purpose of this category is to identify the most popular South African brand, so although Coca-Cola was mentioned as the strong favourite, it had to make way for Eskom. The top three are:
1. Eskom
2. SABMiller
3. Telkom

South Africa's most popular personality

It comes as no surprise that Madiba dominated this category and received more than twice the number of mentions that the runner-up, President Thabo Mbeki did. The top five are:
1. Nelson Mandela
2. Thabo Mbeki
3. Winnie Mandela
4. Mangosuthu Buthelezi
5. Charlize Theron

Most supported sports team in South Africa

Soccer dominated this category:
1. Kaizer Chiefs
2. Orlando Pirates
3. Bafana Bafana

The rest of the top brands in the Business-to-consumer survey were as follows: