Nokia and Visa reach platinum brand rank

HONG KONG: Nokia and Visa have made their debut as Platinum SuperBrands, one of 12 companies to achieve "brand domination in their category" in Reader's Digest's third SuperBrands 2001 poll. But Sony still retained its hold as the leading brand in Asia, with platinum wins in four key consumer electronics categories - television, CD/MD player, DVD player and video camera. Although Sony takes home two fewer platinum trophies this year, this is partly due to a cutback in categories, from 41 last year to 38 this year. The magazine eliminated video recorders, which Sony dominated last year, along with APS camera, cooker and vodka. It added a credit card category for the first time, with the platinum award going to Visa, which beat gold award winner American Express for the top prize. Similarly, Nokia pipped gold award winners Ericsson and Motorola. The other platinum winners are Shell (gas station), Coca-Cola (soft drink), Lipton (tea), Nescafe (coffee) and Nestle (milk). Reader's Digest associate publisher Peter Jeffery said the platinum award is the equivalent of category domination since the winner must achieve a score that is three times more than its nearest rival. "So there is a huge gap between the platinum and gold awards," Jeffery said. The magazine's associate director for regional marketing services, Anne-Louise McWilliam, said this year's results closely mirrored last year's findings, confirming that "the winners are indeed SuperBrands". McWilliam said: "The multinationals have performed very well in Asian markets across most categories. The cooking products and beverage categories show more local brands performing well in individual markets, especially Taiwan." Compared with the first year when the magazine was inundated with more than 30,000 responses, this year's target was a total of 1,000 replies from its readership base in the six markets polled - Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia. A key element of the survey is the qualitative part, which requires respondents to rate their choice on five brand values. Jeffrey said: "At any one category, there might be one, two or maybe three products which really stand out. So the competition is really strong. Having this qualitative measure means that people become a little more selective because they actually have to go through the process of thinking whether their choice is a truly great brand." The success with the SuperBrands poll in Asia has spawned similar projects across 35 other markets, but under a different name, Trusted Brands.

Sign In

Trouble signing in?

Reset Password: Click here

Contact Customer Support at

Customerservice@campaignasia.com