MSI Global Alliance Survey Identifies Australia’s Most Visible Brands – By Category
Coke, Myer, Coles, CBA, Qantas, Specsavers clear-cut ‘most visible’ brands in their categories
In the most recent quarterly survey by legal and accounting group MSI Global Alliance, more than 800 participants nominated a series of businesses across 18 categories – to identify Australia’s ‘Most
Visible Brands’. Participants were asked to select the ‘most visible’ and ‘least visible’ brands from a named group of
well-known businesses across the 18 categories. They were asked to base their selection on gut feel as to which brands
had been more visible to them personally over the past 12 month period.
Clear winners
Clear winners nominated as the ‘most visible’ brands over the past 12 months in their categories included Myer in the Department Stores category (60 per cent of nominations vs. David Jones:38 per cent), Specsavers in the optical retail category (72 per cent of nominations vs. OPSM:21 per cent), Qantas in Airlines (63 per cent vs. Virgin Australia: 35 per cent), Commonwealth Bank (55 per cent vs. ANZ: 15 per cent) and eBay easily taking out the Online Retail category (64 per cent vs. Amazon: 18 per cent). It was perhaps no surprise to see Coke (89 per cent) a very clear winner over Pepsi (5 per cent).
Narrow winners
Other categories were more closely contested with Coles (53 per cent) more narrowly beating Woolworths (42 per cent) in the Grocery category, Target (46 per cent) ahead of Kmart (28 per cent) and Big W (22 per cent) in Big Box Retail and BUPA (51 per cent) leading Medibank Private (37 per cent) in Health Funds.
The most visible insurance brand is AAMI (45 per cent) over Allianz (37 per cent) while Panadol (48 per cent) narrowly held off Nurofen (44 per cent) with both easily ahead of home grown Herron (3 per cent).
Similarly, Wotif and Webjet appear to be head to head in consumers’ minds with 45 per cent and 37 per cent of the nominations respectively for most
visible brand in the Online Hotel and Airlines Booking category.
Broader spread
The Auto category saw a much broader spread of nominations: while overall Toyota (34 per cent) was nominated as most visible auto brand, Holden (15 per cent), Mazda (15 per cent), Hyundai (13 per cent) also made it into double-figures. Ford was only nominated by 7 per cent of participants.
Similarly, pharmacy is currently a business segment seeing a great deal of competition among category players with the result being a strong
spread of nominations across Chemists Warehouse (37 per cent), Priceline (18 per cent), Amcal (17 per cent), Terry White (14 per cent) and Chemmart (10 per cent).
This was mirrored in the Car Rentals category with Budget (31 per cent) and Avis (30 per cent) running neck and neck, with Europcar (14 per cent) and Hertz (12 per cent) each collecting more than 10 per cent of nominations in their category.
And finally…
With plain packaging laws now in place for cigarette manufacturers, the question still remains over which brands are strong enough in the minds of consumers to retain a public profile.
While more than 25 per cent did not nominate any brand, in total Marlboro (27 per cent), Winfield (21 per cent) and Benson & Hedges (20 per cent) scored significant nominations.
MSI Global Alliance Chairman for Australia and New Zealand Alec Blacklaw commented that: “Clearly consumers in Australia have a strong connection with brands that appeal to all demographics.
Brand visibility, however, is on one level all about the connection between significant marketing budgets and memorable
advertising. On another level, some brands have become so omni-present that almost nothing can dislodge their
visibility, even when it is hard to put a finger on their advertising campaigns – Coca Cola is a great example of this.”
“What is perhaps most interesting about the results of this survey is that the businesses which appear to have strong
public momentum have come out on top in what is intentionally simply a survey based on immediate ‘gut feel’. VB trending
against XXXX Gold since it reverted to its original strength seems to have done wonders for its visibility, for
example.”
For the full survey results, click here
ENDS