All the 2010 Sunday Times Top Brands winners

Enver Groenewald, Avusa Media's general manager for advertising revenue and strategic communications, with MTN chief marketing officer, Serame Taukobong

"Two significant new Grand Prix awards"

"This year we wanted to share both the brands and personalities that shaped the phenomenal year of 2010. Therefore, we created two significant new Grand Prix awards that have added further prominence to the well-established event, which saw very influential brand builders recognised for the first time for their contribution to this incredible year," says Enver Groenewald, Avusa Media GM: advertising revenue and strategic communications.

In second place for Marketing Personality of the Year was Zayd Abrahams, head of marketing for sparkling beverages at The Coca-Cola Company. Tied in third place was Pieter Klerck, senior manager: marketing communications planning and advertising of Toyota South Africa and Enzo Scarcella, Vodacom's managing executive: marketing.

These winners were chosen based on receiving the most nominations from the marketing and advertising industry.

"Other new category"

Enver Groenewald, Avusa Media's general manager for advertising revenue and strategic communications, Nunu Ntshingila, Ogilvy SA CEO and Margarita Putter, TNS Research Surveys CEO

"The other new category that acknowledged iconic brand builders this year was the Robyn Putter Top Brand Agency of the Year. We decided to dedicate and name the award after legendary creative advertising leader, Robyn Putter, who sadly passed away this year. The former Ogilvy South Africa CEO and Ogilvy Worldwide board director built Ogilvy into the biggest agency in South Africa and one of the most creative agencies in the Ogilvy network. He won over 230 international creative awards in his career," explains Groenewald.

This award went to Ogilvy Johannesburg that received the most points for its clients that won first, second and third place for the Top Brand survey. This adds yet another accolade for Ogilvy, which has dominated industry awards this year. Draftfcb came in second and TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris third.

The other Grand Prix awards were for the overall favourite brand, the brand that has done the most to uplift the community and the brand that has done the most to promote 'green' or 'environmentally friendly'. This year, the Grand Prix of all Grands Prix went to Coca-Cola, a re-award from last year. Second place went to Koo, which has moved up the ranks from third place, while KFC came in strongly in third place.

The spontaneous response from people in metropolitan South Africa saw Coca-Cola step up to first place for the brand that has done the most to uplift the community, moving Pick n Pay down two places to third position with Vodacom in second position (up from third last year). For the brand that has promoted being environmentally friendly the most, the top three finishers from last year took to the podium again. Pick n Pay won, followed by Woolworths in second place and Nedbank in third.

All the winners

Note that categories highlighted in red are new.

"The trend of South African consumers and the marketing industry recognising brands and builders that made us feel proudly South African, in the year that the country hosted one of the biggest sporting events in the world, also came through in the other categories. This was shown strongly in the new essential foods, tinned food, household cleaning and laundry care categories with well-known South African brand names coming out tops," points out Debbie Booth, TNS Research Surveys' client service business manager.

"Other results from the business-to-consumer survey saw that respondents were more susceptible to the 'recession regression' but strong brands remained strong and sometimes even stronger, where people tended to turn and return to brands they know and love in tough times. The business-to-business survey results remained stable in comparison with last year's results, with this sector showing 'recession resilience'."

Proudly South African year

Sunday Times Top Brands Awards 2010 winners

click to enlarge

The theme for the awards in the proudly South African year of 2010 was fittingly "What a year, what a country, what a brand". Sunday Times again commissioned TNS Research Surveys to conduct the Top Brands survey, which captured how the spirit of this landmark year saw iconic brands and brand builders that made SA feel proud come out tops.

TNS spoke to 3500 consumers in South Africa, in both metro and non-metro areas of the country. In a separate survey, it interviewed 400 business leaders with regard to categories pertinent to business needs and services.

Business and marketing personalities, together with South African celebrities, were entertained with a number of surprises on the night of the awards. Guests enjoyed a performance by one of SA's most prolific Afrikaans rappers, Jack Parow, there were video interruptions from ZA News' Jacob Zuma, Bheki Cele, Julius Malema and Helen Zille, and a tongue-in-cheek photographic exhibition by Justin Dingwall of South African brands, using front covers and headline posters of the Sunday Times.