Branding firm’s ranking style brews market jitters

By Jackson Okoth

As the dust settles on this year’s listing of the top 10 Superbrands in East Africa, doubts linger on how the selection process was undertaken.

This is after it emerged that a stolen vehicle recovery firm, Track It, had been given a superbrand status.

The matter brings to sharp focus, the credibility of Superbrands East Africa, a UK-based brand analysis firm, affecting public perception of its brand rankings.

"We do not undertake research on any particular firm as this might cause a conflict of interest and raise questions," said Jawad Jaffer, Superbrands East Africa project director and associate publisher.

The brand analysis firm says it is the London-based The Centre for Brand Analysis (TCBA), which it appointed to administer this year’s process.

Also involved was Research International, which undertook the consumer fieldwork element.

"This independence ensures that commercial consideration do not impact upon the programme and that the strongest brands are duly identified," says Jaffer. This year’s ranking of top Superbrands in East Africa included world mobile phone maker Nokia, which emerged top.

Blue-Band, a Unilever product, emerged second while detergent Omo came third followed by beverage maker Coca-Cola.

The survey involved interviewing experts and at least 2,500 consumers, by the Nairobi-based Research International, in the markets of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

Research shows in every market where Superbrands operates, they tend to outperform local rivals.

"This is because of their international marketing capability, financial power, research and development capacity, and distribution strength, which gives them a distinct advantage over smaller regional rivals," says Jaffer.

Majority of local brands are yet to acquire this status due to lack of access to export markets and ability to bring foreign earnings into the local economy, key features of a superbrand.

The Process

Consumers are expected to seek for quality, reliability and distinction when answering questions during a consumer survey.

"All three factors are explained in laymen terms so that they are understood by those being interviewed," says Jaffer.

The brand analysis firm, currently, has no specific criteria for stripping a firm of its status. The status awarded reflects the perception of experts and consumers at a point in time. "Whether it is a result of poor corporate behaviour, a decline in the brands equity, less impressive marketing activity or worsening product quality, a brand can only lose its status the experts and consumers deem that it should," says Jaffer.

Brand status

He argues that as in the case of Track It, if the firm was to change the status of a brand as a result of every corporate action, the list would change almost daily creating confusion to the branding industry.

"We now have a new system that will make it possible to monitor and track the movement of every brand to see if it has risen or fallen in the ranking. This is to keep brand owners on their toes, reward or punish them for their successes and failures," says Jaffer.