Top Brands Survey out now

The annual Sunday Times Top Brands Awards were announced late last week at an event in Sandton. Unathi Msengana, media personality, musician and SA Idols judge, announced the winners of the survey, conducted on behalf of Avusa Media by TNS.

The researchers interviewed 400 senior business people, as well as 3500 consumers over the age of 18. The results reveal a general trend that, in many instances, category usage has increased significantly from last year, with consumer optimism emerging from the recessionary mind-set.

Neil Higgs, senior adviser and head of innovation at TNS South Africa, said that the company's consumer confidence measure shows that South Africans were relatively bullish regarding the first quarter of the year, "with consumers willing to spend more on luxury goods such as cars, sports clothing and cosmetics."

The survey evaluated overall brand familiarity, user experience, non-user perception and actual brand presence in the South African market. The combined results of these aspects delivered the winning brands in 38 consumer categories, and 13 business sector categories.

Favourite winner

Once again, Koo walked away with the Grand Prix Overall Favourite Brand Award. Coca-Cola placed second while also winning three prestigious Top Brands Grand Prix awards as the brand that has done the most to uplift the community, the brand rated most environmentally friendly and the brand considered most-desirable to work for (a new Grand Prix category in 2012).

Based on the runaway success of the 'Steve' campaign, the Top Brands Marketing Personality of the Year accolade went to Bernice Samuels, chief marketing officer for FNB. The influence of this campaign also undoubtedly pushed FNB up into second spot in the retail banking category, with currently beleaguered Absa still maintaining the lead.

Consumer results showed some differences from that of the business leaders, with SAA claiming the award in the consumer sector and British Airways taking top place in the business sector for airlines. Similarly, Nokia is the leading cellphone choice for consumers, while the business sector is more aligned with Apple. Vodacom is South Africa's top rated telecommunications service provider in the eyes of both the business sector and consumers.

Other category winners include Rama, Bakers, Pyotts, Panado, Clover Krush, Red Square, Johnnie Walker, Hansa, Hunters, Ricoffy, Cadbury, Tastic, Shoprite, KFC, Avon, Vaseline, Sunlight, Handy Andy, Samsung, Defy, Toyota, Engen, Old Mutual, Hollard, Avis, Tsogo Sun, Momentum, Investec, DHL, Talk Radio 702, Nike, OUTsurance and Spur. The Sunday Times remains the top weekly newspaper.

Brand Agency of the Year

The Robyn Putter Top Brand Agency of the Year Award, which recognises the creative agencies behind the big brands, is calculated on a points system for agencies with clients that achieved first, second and third place in the Top Brands Survey. This year the award went to Draftfcb.

"With every survey commissioned, the results continue to deliver real insights into the consumer market in South Africa and it's a privilege to be able to provide our clients and the public with these interesting findings," concludes Trevor Ormerod, GM of advertising sales, Avusa Media.
Full results

Domestic Airline*	1. South African Airways
	2. British Airways
	3. Mango
Car* (significant increase in category usage) Positions were shuffled in this growing category with Toyota making a great leap into first position. Volkswagen pushed Mercedes out of second position with its overall improvements and even though BMW improved its scores, it was outperformed by its competitors and fell from first to third place.	1. Toyota
	2. Volkswagen
	3. BMW
Petrol Station* (significant increase in category usage)	1. Engen
	2. BP
	3. Shell
Convenience and Grocery Store* Shoprite is once again in first place with Pick n Pay stable in second place. Woolworths' score has declined, which has allowed Spar to move into its place in third.	1. Shoprite
	2. Pick 'n Pay (Supermarket/ Hypermarket/ Family Store)
	3. Spar/KwikSpar/Super Spar
Fast Food* (significant increase in category usage)	1. KFC
	2. Nando's
	3. McDonald's/McCafe
Chocolate*	1. Cadbury slabs
	2. Lunch Bar
	3. Ferrero Rocher
Sweet Biscuits (new category)*	1. Bakers Tennis Biscuits
	2. Bakers Eat-Sum-Mor
	3. Bakers Romany Creams
Savoury Biscuits (new category)	1. Salticrax
	2. Pro Vita
	3. Pyott's Mini Cheddars
Essential Food* (significant increase in category usage)	1. Tastic
	2. Albany
	3. White Star
Tinned Food* (significant increase in category usage)	1. Koo
	2. Lucky Star
	3. All Gold
Fat Spreads (new category)	1. Rama
	2. Stork
	3. Flora
Household Cleaning* (significant increase in category usage)	1. Handy Andy
	2. Sunlight
	3. JIK
Laundry Care* (significant increase in category usage)	1. Sunlight
	2. Sta-Soft
	3. Omo
Personal Care*	1. Vaseline
	2. Protex
	3. Ponds
Headache Tablets	1. Panado
	2. Grand-Pa
	3. Disprin
Beauty and Cosmetics* (significant increase in category usage) The cosmetics category grew in 2012 with Avon capturing the crown from Estee Lauder, driven by improved user perceptions. Yardley upheld its position in second place and Revlon's improved user ratings pushed it up into third place.	1. Avon
	2. Yardley
	3. Revlon
Sports Clothing Brand* (significant increase in category usage)	1. Nike
	2. Adidas
	3. Puma
Hot Beverage* Ricoffy is still number one and Joko maintains third place in the hot beverages category. The Five Roses score has improved considerably and has thus swapped places with Freshpak, moving from fourth to second place.	1. Ricoffy
	2. Five Roses
	3. Joko
Fruit-based Drink*	1. Clover Krush
	2. Tropika
	3. Liqui-Fruit
Soft Drink* Coca-Cola still dominates in first place by far and improved its score from last year. Fanta and Sprite remain in second and third place respectively; however, Sprite is narrowing its gap with Fanta	1. Coca-Cola
	2. Fanta
	3. Sprite
Beer*	1. Hansa
	2. Heineken
	3. Castle Lite
Alcoholic Spirit* Johnnie Walker has moved into first place. Amarula made a great leap from tenth to second position facilitated by having the highest usage of all the brands tested in the category. Jack Daniels went from sixth to third place.	1. Johnnie Walker
	2. Amarula
	3. Jack Daniel's
Cider (significant increase in category usage)	1. Hunter's Dry/Gold/ Extreme
	2. Savanna Dry/Light
	3. Redd's Dry/Original
Alcoholic Cooler Red Square remains on top in this category through its increase in usership as well as improved user and non-user ratings. Second and third place have new recipients with Brutal Fruit jumping up from fifth to second, and Smirnoff moving up from fourth to third place because of the large declines of Hooch Fox and Bacardi Breezer.	1. Red Square
	2. Brutal Fruit
	3. Smirnoff Spin/Twist/ Storm
Retail Bank* (significant increase in category usage) Absa holds its position in first place in a growing category, while FNB knocked Standard Bank out of second to third place due to its greater improvement in overall ratings facilitated by their successful 'Steve' advertising campaign.	1. Absa
	2. FNB
	3. Standard Bank
Short-term Insurance (significant increase in category usage) The top three positions have changed since last year with only OUTsurance remaining and it has been pushed out of first to second place. Hollard has jumped from fifth to first place. Sanlam moved into the top three, taking third place.	1. Hollard
	2. OUTsurance
	3. Sanlam