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.
